Was Decker an honourable, upstanding guy?

[sidney]

When he was first introduced, I got the impression that Decker was bad... Really bad... Like corrupt bad... I mean, his favourite sport was blowing up hospitals...

Yet, throughout the series, aren't we led to believe that he stops the corrupt behaviour of the bad guys of the week? In WHITE BALLOT just this week, he's used to threaten the bad guys because he doesn't like dirty campaigns... (Was it Hannibal that threatens with Decker coming? I can't remember anymore.)

So what was Decker's character? Was he honourable? Was he a bad guy?

[amyk]

I just commented on this in one of the other Decker threads, where I mentioned one thing I like about Decker is how he also seems angry with schemes of the bad guys. But it does bother me what Hannibal said about Decker blowing up the Viet Cong hospitals like it was his favorite sport. I think that Decker may be someone, though, who can only see things as black or white. So for him, I think all the VC, even people in hospitals, were "the enemy." So he probably had no scruples about blowing them up. I don't think he was corrup in doing that. He may have believed that what he was doing was something to help finish the war more quickly. I presume he was acting under orders, which would be kind of ironic if he wasn't, since the team was acting under orders when they committed their "crime."

So, I don't consider Decker to be honorable necessarily, but I do consider him to be determined to get the job done. I think Hannibal even said it that way, i.e. that he gets the job done and he doesn't care who gets hurt or something like that, didn't he?

I don't consider Decker a "bad guy" but I don't consider him a "good guy." I guess I would say he is a "determined guy" who doesn't like to lose. But he is loyal to the army, in my opinion. I would have loved for it to have been Decker instead of Fulbright who finally realized that the team was not really the bad guys. Maybe I'll have to do something about this in a fanfiction script!

[sidney]

Oh, I wouldn't have liked it if Decker was the one in SOUND OF THUNDER though... To have a daughter he never knew and then died in Hannibal's arms...

I don't want Decker to die.

[HoudiniDerek]

I would have liked Decker to find out the team wasn't bad too, but maybe not in THE SOUND OF THUNDER.

I think Decker was an honorable man in his own right, but I think his methods were somewhat questionable. I think he believed he was doing the right thing and that bad guys are bad guys, even if he had to use bad guys to catch the team.

[zania]

Here's a very interesting quote from RANGE RIDER:

General: These men have been wanted for over ten years. All in all, they've made a fine bunch of jackasses out of all of us, and I want it to stop now. I want you to find the A-Team and bring 'em in. You were the best troubleshooter in the past two wars.
Decker: Until extreme political pressures knocked the hat off my career, and any possibility of furthering my rank. It seems the very methods that made me, eh, an embarrassment and shuffled me off to the side are the exact reasons why I'm being considered the best man for this job.
General: I'm not saying . . .
Decker: We both know what you're saying, General, so let's not dance around the floor once. Everyone heard the reports from 'Nam on these guys. They were the best, because they're fast, sharp, and unorthodox. The way to catch men like this are to play by their rules, which means . . . there are none.
General: What I'm interested in, Colonel, are results. I don't expect detailed reports on the whats, hows, or whens of their apprehension. I just want to know that it's done.

From the way this conversation is held, it seems that Decker was very similar to the A-Team in terms of the unorthodox style . . . only Decker used a lot of questionable means that didn't sit well with many and derailed his military career.

[amyk]

Oh, I wouldn't have liked it if Decker was the one in SOUND OF THUNDER though... To have a daughter he never knew and then died in Hannibal's arms...

No, I wouldn't have wanted Decker to have the daughter, but I actually would have liked him to have discovered that Morrison was really alive and to take the team to 'Nam with him to try to bring back Morrison. That would have been so great, in my opinion.

[sidney]

Yeah... That's how the series could have ended! Decker rescuing them... For real... Not pretendingto rescue them to get his daughter...

[amyk]

Fulbright didn't rescue the team, either, did he?

It would have been great if Decker ended up being the one to help prove the team's innocence, after all that time.

[sidney]

That's what I was saying!

[geneaqueen]

I think Decker was one of those "The ends justifies the means" types of people. I don't think he saw what he did in Vietnam as immoral; he saw it as 'patriotic'. Unfortunately, that idea leads a lot of people down the wrong path.

[amyk]

That's what I was saying!

Sorry, I didn't understand you I guess.