But it does show he was a mindless robot.
it shows he was well trained and did his job. the responsability is on the shoulders of the man who gave the order not the pilot.
lets turn the tables a little bit. you are a U.S. fighter pilot. it's early morning september 11th, 2001. you get a call to engage a civilian comercial airliner. you are told to fire on it. should you be the 'mindless drone' who does what he's told, or do you decide to think for yourself and refuse, maybe discuse it for awhile, have your superiors prove to you why it needs done before you fire. even if they eventually convince you to do your job, your hesitation may have allowed the plane to get over the city so even if you do finally do your job it's too late.
I come from a military family (dad did 22 years), and even though I didn't choose that path (18 years of 'basic training' was enough for me) I understand enough about chain of comand to know that at some point you have to trust your comanders to give you lawful orders and they trust you to follow them.
if this guy was ordered to shoot it's what he should have done. I don't know of any military that issues orders then lets the men vote to follow them or not.