When I was a teenager, I watched the 1986 CBS film “Women of Valor”, about American nurses captured by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. One early scene never left me: under moonlight, the women move along the shoreline with Red Cross markings, trusting the “rules of war” would protect them—then the shooting starts. That was my first gut-level understanding that rules on paper don’t save anyone if the people with guns decide they don’t care.
What I heard at 14
I remember a nurse saying the Japanese would follow the rules of war—the Geneva Conventions—and the confidence in her voice, like that emblem meant safety. Then gunfire. Even without sight, I could hear bodies hit the water. I was a kid asking: why shoot nurses? Why attack people whose whole job is to treat the wounded? For the record, military nurses are uniformed service members (Army Nurse Corps, Navy Nurse Corps), but under the laws of war, clearly marked medical personnel are supposed to be respected and protected as noncombatants. That protection is the whole point of the Red Cross emblem on the armband—and of the Geneva system. See the ICRC’s summary of medical protections and the U.S. Army’s own history of the Nurse Corps in WWII for context: ICRC Rule 25: Medical personnel must be respected and protected; Army Nurse Corps in WWII (U.S. Army Center of Military History).
What Project 2025 wants to do to DoD
Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” (Heritage) is a governing playbook aligned with the current administration. Its Defense chapter (by former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller) says the Pentagon is “deeply troubled,” blames a “woke” culture, and demands a top-down reset focused on lethality and warfighting. The chapter calls for purging DEI programs, reorienting everything to combat readiness, cracking down on perceived bureaucratic bloat, and accelerating procurement of ships, aircraft, and munitions. It’s not law by itself, but it’s meant to be the blueprint. Heritage press page.
What Trump and Hegseth just said
On September 30, 2025, at a highly unusual generals-and-admirals gathering at Marine Corps Base Quantico, President Trump floated using U.S. cities as “training grounds” for troops to fight a supposed “war from within.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked “woke” policies, told holdouts to resign, and pushed harder-edged standards (for example, restoring older fitness benchmarks and more “aggressive” training approaches). There’s also a rebranding push toward calling the Pentagon the “Department of War” (described as pending or aspirational). The overarching direction is unmistakable: normalize domestic missions and loosen restraints. Coverage: Reuters; AP; analysis from CSIS and DefenseScoop.
Why the rules of war matter
The Geneva Conventions exist to protect wounded soldiers, medics, and prisoners—and to restrain cruelty when fear and vengeance are running hot. In WWII’s Pacific theater, those protections were often ignored with catastrophic results. Japan signed but did not ratify the 1929 POW convention and said in 1942 it would follow the Geneva rules and the 1907 Hague laws; on the ground, compliance was frequently absent. That’s why you see horrors like the Palawan massacre of American POWs as U.S. forces closed in—contrasted with the lightning Los Baños rescue that saved over 2,000 internees when rescuers beat the clock. Background: PBS on Japan and the Geneva Conventions; U.S. State Dept. historical note.
“Peace” isn’t passivity
I admire peace activists. But “peace” can’t mean standing by while people are brutalized. I’m not a pacifist—some wars (like WWII) had to be fought because failing to stop the Nazis would have cost even more lives. The point of the rules is to keep even necessary wars from becoming anything-goes wars.
If we loosen the rules
- Reciprocity kicks in. Enemies mirror us. Our medics and POWs lose protection. (That’s literally how the Geneva system works.) ICRC.
- Discipline erodes. “Unshackled” forces see more abuse scandals and moral injury, driving out good leaders.
- Legitimacy collapses. Allies distance themselves; public support at home evaporates when headlines turn stomach-churning.
- Domestic lines blur. If we treat U.S. cities as training ranges, what message are we sending about how we’ll treat foreign civilians—and what they can do to ours in return? Reuters; AP.
My bottom line
That moonlit scene wasn’t just drama; it was a warning. When leaders start treating humanitarian law like red tape and talk about turning American neighborhoods into “training grounds,” regular people pay in blood. I want a country that keeps the rules—on the battlefield and at home. That isn’t weakness. It’s the minimum standard of civilization.
Sources
- “Women of Valor” (CBS, Nov. 23, 1986)
- Project 2025, “Mandate for Leadership” (full PDF); Heritage press page
- Quantico meeting and date: Reuters (Sept. 30, 2025); AP; CSIS analysis; DefenseScoop
- Medical personnel protections: ICRC: Rule 25; U.S. Army: Army Nurse Corps in WWII
- WWII context: PBS: Japan, POWs, and the Geneva Conventions; State Dept. historical note on Japan and the 1929 POW convention; National WWII Museum: Palawan massacre; Raid on Los Baños
Notes from the edge of the system 