That's an interesting question, but hardly analogous to the question at hand. During the Nazi regime, the SS presented a danger to the life of every Jew in Europe. I would consider the killing of an SS in German territory to be an act of self-defense; obviously, the Germans disagreed, and would judge such an act to be murder. There's also the old maxim that it is never murder to kill a tyrant. In a combat zone, the SS would not be covered by the laws of war--they didn't obey the laws, themselves--so the killing of an SS by a nonbelligerent would have been permissible under international law and may or may not have been permissible under municipal law. As in the above case, I'd consider it self-defense or national defense.
After the war, the extrajudicial killing of an SS not in self-defense would be murder. The killer might get off with the jury's sympathy, might not. The killing of an SS by an organ or agent of the State of Israel falls into the gray area of covert action. States can't commit murder, and the officers employed by states to covertly kill their enemies usually have diplomatic immunity. States may practice proportional retribution, and as the state of much of Europe's surviving Jewry, a case could be made that killing SS is an act of legal retribution. (I don't think they did it willy-nilly, either. They tried to bring them back for trial.)
Anyway, it's all a red herring, the Public Health Service has nothing in common with the SS. The SS was the Nazi Party's army. It institutionalized genocide and, in historical terms, was deemed criminal and destroyed almost as soon as it appeared. The PHS is the Federal government's medical agency and has existed, in one form or another, since 1798. Its officers are commissioned in accordance with Article II, Section 3 of the US Constitution, and the organization's existence stems from Article II, Section 8's authorization to provide for a navy. (The Public Health Service used to be the Marine Health Service; its scope broadened when we started figuring out how diseases are transmitted.) There might be something wrong with the Commissioned Corps of the PHS, but the comparison to the SS is unconscionable. The other poster's call for thousands of murders is obscene.
Actually, yes it is. The Nazi's didn't rise to power over night. Nor did they go from winning office to exterminating Jews in one move either. Any government officer acting outside of their Constitutional powers is a common criminal. The self defense against which we are fully, and morally, justified.
Anyway, it's all a red herring, the Public Health Service has nothing in common with the SS.
Again... The SS didn't start out as an extermination unit. From small seeds are oaks grown.
Ignore this at your own peril.
The SS had their own Public Health Service Wing that was charged with extermination of the handicapped and infirm and elderly.
“That’s an interesting question, but hardly analogous to the question at hand. During the Nazi regime, the SS presented a danger to the life of every Jew in Europe. “
You are viewing this with 20/20 hindsight of history. Until AFTER the Allied Forces conquered the Concentration Camps, people denied they were anything but grand! Even had a really nice one in Switzerland that Hitler would have a Nazi soldier film them (jews) all healthy and playing ball. Like they were just living it up in the sunshine. Of course that was a minute amount of people, the rest were being murdered. I suggest you watch the documentary “Steal a pencil for me”, that will give you an idea.
And even AFTER the liberation, our Generals were so terrified that people would NOT BELIEVE him at how horrific the camps were, and how staggering the deaths were, that he made the soldiers film them burying the thousands and thousands of dead that was just laying around.
So, I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you when you say that you would have killed an SS soldier. You would have been just like all the Germans who told themselves that Hitler wouldn’t, Hitler COULDN’T be THAT bad!