Beating him up is the worst of both worlds. You can BET that it has been taken out on the boy.
Well, I don't know about the boy, but I think the soldiers acted with restraint. Sometimes action is what counts and the consequences be damned. If consequences weren't damned, then we wouldn't have a country today if the patriots were concerned with consequences.
Your statement is the easy way out and if everybody thought that then the world would be one hell of a place.