Barry: over a decade later, that area is still a mess. Al- Qa'im today is an Isis stronghold. A recent Iraqi bombing of Isis militants in Al- Qa'im left another hundred civilians killed; this was in December of 2016. You're listening to Hi-Phi Nation, a philosophy podcast that turns stories into ideas. I'm Barry Lam. This week, we hear about moral conflicts in war. What happens when something bothers a soldier morally in a war? How much are they willing to stand up for their moral convictions and is it even fair to ask soldiers to make the kinds of decisions they have to make in fighting unconventional wars like in Iraq and Afghanistan? Any tactics that politicians call for in a war, like torture; they don't have to implement them. Soldiers do. And soldiers have to be the ones who live with their decisions. This is part one of two about the philosophy of war, and we'll hear from a remarkable group of veterans. They're part from the first generation in decades of soldiers returning from a prolonged American war, now training to be philosophers. Stay tuned. Just one year behind Ian in the 82nd Airborne was a young soldier named Mike Robillard. I met him down at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Mike: I'm Michael Robillard. I'm currently a Stockdale Center research fellow, as well as a University of Connecticut graduate student, PhD candidate, and, prior to my time doing this, I was a former officer in the US Army with the 82nd Airborne Division. So, I was 17 when I joined the military. I needed a parental waiver to get in. I remember going to my guidance counselor and she said, 'you should apply to the Ivies; what do your parents do?' And I said, 'well, my dad drives forklift and my mom, you know, she works odd jobs.' And so, like, 'oh, well there's these things called the service academies that they're like an Ivy, but it's a free, the term 'free ride' it kept kind of coming up. Five years five years of that service as an officer. I have a younger sister, I was thinking that this could be a really good thing, I don't want to bury my parents financially. There's also, I think, a lot of a desire to live up to maybe sort of traditional masculine roles.

Barry: after West Point, Mike fulfills his first dream and becomes an Army Ranger. At this point, the US was gearing up for war in Iraq.

Mike: So I wanted to deploy. It's not like I was thirsting to go to combat for combat's sake; this is something that I've been training for, this is an identity or a role that I've assumed. Soldiers often take on a very paradoxical headspace because, unlike other professions, they never really get the opportunity to realize their craft or to vindicate their identity that they've been training so much for. Doctors are going to have to treat some illness, lawyers deal with something related to legality, police officers are gonna face criminals, but soldiers, you know, they can end up training an entire career waiting for a day that that might never arrive. So when the opportunity does sort of present itself, there is sort of a natural tendency to say, 'well I trained for this, damnit; put me in. I can do this. I want to make the sacrifice.'

Barry: Mike deploys in the 82nd Airborne as a second lieutenant. He does a lot of things small units do: traffic control points, enforcing curfews, guarding important sites like power plants and water distribution centers. He told me a story of letting a white car go by a traffic control point. Minutes later, someone with a white car shoots a rocket-propelled grenade at his entire squad, who had taken up a position on a rooftop. Mike and his unit locked down the area and searched every white car. One of them has a window blown out. They opened the trunk and find the RPG launcher. Apparently, the back blast from the launcher destroyed the windows of the car. There were third-degree burns all over the driver and passenger.

Mike: They said that they were given a hundred dollars or whatever the equivalent is in Iraqi dinar by