The Laws and Customs of War: Difference between revisions

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[[The Medic]] and [[Good Shepherd|chaplain]] must be permitted to work in those roles, and must not be forced to perform any other. However, medics and chaplains can be put to the care of prisoners other than those from the nation they represent if necessary. They also remain bound by the ethical requirements of their professions, meaning that they may need to minister to the enemy in an emergency.

=== The use of torture on legitimate prisoners of war (actually, on anyone) is absolutely prohibited. ===

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[[The Medic|Medical personnel]] and [[Good Shepherd|chaplains]], being noncombatants, are not technically prisoners of war, though they must receive as good treatment as the prisoners. Furthermore, they must be permitted to carry out their ministrations. They can be required to minister to prisoners from other nationalities, however, and are still bound by professional and ethical obligations that may compel them to minister to the enemy in an emergency.

=== Cleaning up the Mess ===

It is generally expected that wounded will be cared for impartially and sometimes [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen|that expectation will be lived up to.]] For instance in Operation Crusader in North Africa the field hospitals would have equal numbers of British and German staff. This was a special circumstance, where the battle took place far from the interference of a totalitarian state, and allowed the ideas of commanders who [[Officer and a Gentleman|followed traditional military ideology]] to prevail on both sides.

The dead are of naturally less priority but aside from emotional considerations they are a bother in many practical ways. Theoretically the dead are to be buried respectfully and their families informed through a neutral party. As war is a big factory for producing corpses they often have to use shortcuts like mass graves. However at the least effects can be written down with little effort. This was the origin of individual identifying markers. Sometimes, as described in the section on truces, if a given action is indecisive but intense enough to bring about a large number of casualties, a truce will be called to recover casualties.

=== Ransom and Exchange ===