How should a soldier behave when taken prisoner by another country with whom his country is not at war?

Answer 1

First off, why would a country they are not at war with capture them? Usually, in a situation where a border violation occurs, the offenders are detained until a determination of the circumstances can be made. They are not paraded around on television or made to sign bogus "confessions".

Soldiers in this situation should behave in a professional manner and adhere to their training. British and American troops all receive psychological training for just such occasions. The US has a code of conduct for personnel who are captured or detained that gives guidelines for personal conduct during captivity. I suspect the Brits have something similar, but I don't know for sure.

Answer 2

That is an excellent question. We have a Congress that refuses to declare war, and yet allows the president to send the military into combat. Legally, how could they be considered prisoners of war, since we are not at war?

Why is Congress so afraid of the president? Of what use are they?

Can you imagine a government sending the military into harms way without having the decency to declare war? And then abandoning the MIAs, like they did in Viet Nam. Why do we elect loosers like this?

Answer 3

Article I: I am an American, fighting in the armed forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

Article II: I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

Article III: If I am captured, I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

Article IV: If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information nor take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

Article V: When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service, number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

Article VI: I will never forget that I am an American, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

Answer 4

US Army Code of Conduct:

I
I am an American, fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

II
I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command, I will never surrender the members of my command while they still have the means to resist.

III
If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. I will make every effort to escape and to aid others to escape. I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

IV
If I become a prisoner of war, I will keep faith with my fellow prisoners. I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades. If I am senior, I will take command. If not, I will obey the lawful orders of those appointed over me and will back them up in every way.

V
When questioned, should I become a prisoner of war, I am required to give name, rank, service number, and date of birth. I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability. I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause.

VI
I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.

Answer 5

Actually, seizing the soldiers, sailors or airmen of a country would be an act of war.

You should give name/rank/serial number and try and keep it to that. In practise, of course, it would be useless to deny that you were serving in a certain unit, or on a particular service vessel, since your unit flashes would give that away.

If, as in the recent example in Iran, your captors want you to "confess" to something, you would need to decide if your life or physical well-being is in peril.

Thanks to the decision of Bush and Blair to resort to torture, you can pretty much guarantee that your life and physical well-being are, in fact, in peril. Your ultimate duty, as a captive, is to try and escape...so you must preserve your life and physical well-being at all costs.

Answer 6

The British prisoners were probably made to perform. Video cameras don't always tell the whole truth.

But, yes, playing ping-pong and laughing together over a warm meal would be over the line.

Answer 7

According to Attorney General Gonzales, who has a different interpretation than almost any other country in the world, your captors could hold you at a secret location and torture you without ever reporting you have been taken.
Then put you on trial as a criminal.

Answer 8

As others have said resist until I can not longer resist. If they get me alive I will give the obligatory name rank and ssn. I would look for a way to escape from the area, as well as keep up the moral of those around me. I would stay in uniform and I would not accept any special favors from them. there is a whole code of conduct we in the us military go
by.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United_States_Military_Code_of_Conduct

Answer 9

First I would resist capture until I did not have the means to resist. Second I sure as hell would not give any information about my unit, my mission and why I was where I was. Third I sure as hell would not appear on a video denouncing anything to help their propaganda effort. I may talk to the guards about sports etc in order to get the into a position where they may help me escape but never on a political level, etc. I also would try to escape as long as I had the means to. But at least that's what I have learned at SERE school, learned and taken pride in my code of conduct and also applied in real world environments. You would have to kill me before I appear in a video for a foreign country's political propaganda ........ Shadow Stalker



PS as for the guy about unit flashes They come off :) And I only wore mine 12% of the time in combat .... Shadow Stalker

Answer 10

They should try to maintain their dignity and treat the foreign officers with the respect due their rank. Any sort of disrespect would most likely result in the soldiers death