[oldE]

"What ever gets you out of the mobile home park I guess."
kach22i

That was a crass statement.

This discussion has been going on for centuries.
From, "Dolce et decorum est" to statements such as made by Randy.

We can I hope, understand the reflex action which leads a father or mother to leap into the path of an oncoming vehicle to save the life of their child. It is harder to understand the process which leads a man or woman to endure fatigue, deprivation or hardship to be there at the dirty end of the stick where mistakes don't get brushed off, they can kill.

I have no doubts whatever, the Spartan troops marching to battle groused about the leaders who had put their lives on the line. At one time you could, if you were part of the victorious army, rape and pillage, but that has gone out of fashion in western circles.

You may well ponder why a modern man or woman would place themselves in a position where they might be used as an instrument for a questionable purpose by their leader.

I wonder how the people who were at the top of Enron look at themselves in the mirror in the morning. They probably comfort themselves by saying, "Nobody died."

I think the difference is the soldier still believes despite the flaws in the system or leaders, there is a job to be done. It is worth doing and he/she is the best person to do it.

"On War".
"Ordinary men who follow the suggestions of others become, therefore, generally undecided on the spot; they think that they have found circumstances different from what they had expected, and this view gains strength by their again yielding to the suggestions of others. But even the man who has made his own plans, when he comes to see things with his own eyes will often think he has done wrong. Firm reliance on self must make him proof against the seeming pressure of the moment; his first conviction will in the end prove true, when the foreground scenery which fate has pushed on to the stage of War, with its accompaniments of terrific objects, is drawn aside and the horizon extended." Clausewitz

Les