Why did you join the Marines...

When I joined the Marines, I knew exactly what I was getting into. I did lots of research into the training of the different branches. I knew the requirements, the advancement opportunities, and, to some degree, how the reserve side worked. When I entered boot camp, I knew exactly what was coming.

A year and a half later, I see this: Judge orders discharge of an anti-war Marine

A federal judge has ordered the Marines to discharge a San Jose lance corporal as a "conscientious objector" who had an aversion to killing and participating in war.

First off, why did you join any brance of the ARMED services if you have an aversion to killing and participating in war?

Zabala, a UC Santa Cruz student, began boot camp in June 2003. During a three-month period that summer, one of Zabala's superiors repeatedly gave speeches about "blowing s -- up" or "kicking some f- a-," which caused him to wonder "how someone could be so motivated to kill," he wrote in his court petition in April 2006.

In August 2003, a fellow recruit committed suicide on the shooting range, and the same superior used profanities to belittle him, Zabala wrote, saying he was "abhorred by the blood lust (the superior) seemed to possess."

An instructor showed recruits a "motivational clip" showing Iraqi corpses, explosions, gunfights and rockets set to the song "Bodies," by the heavy-metal band Drowning Pool. The lyrics included "Let the bodies hit the floor," and Zabala said he cried -- his only time while in boot camp -- while other recruits nodded their heads in time with the beat and smiled.

"The sanctity of life that formed the moral center of petitioner's life was being challenged," Collier wrote in a court filing.

After Zabala returned to UC Santa Cruz, he had a conversation with a fellow Marine in May 2004. "I began to think about the thousands of people who died in the past year in war, who didn't die due to just one soldier or suicide bomber, but largely by an organization," Zabala recounted. "This organization trains to kill human life."

This is highly unclear thinking. The Marines train to take life in order to protect it. One thing many people loose on the Marine image of a killing machine, is that every Marine has family behind them. When a Marine sends those rounds downrange, two major motivations are present. The first is to his unit...his fellow Marines. He wants to help his buddies. The second is to his family. "I'm fighting them here, so my family never faces them at home."

To say that the Marines "trains to kill human life" maybe true...but it's also an over simplification. They train to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America" at all costs.

This Marine was confused before he even started training. Why he joined the military is beyond me. After 4 years in, he should just finish his 2 years of service...he'd at least get the GI Bill at that point.