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He never really cared much for work

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Nor human life. 

He was told he was going to get $80,000 for college, not lead a pre-emptive attack against a third-world country.

He may have been raised just like every other child in the world, where war has been glamorized for centuries. 

He will find that war is nothing more than a game of "Political Chess", using humans to take the place of pawns.  The elected officials sit safely in the back, shouting orders.

In the end he will only realize what every other dead pawn has realized, that war is not about "kickin' someone's ass", it's about human violence and arrogance.  It's about futility.  It's about darwinism and the human species running around in circles chasing it's tail.

When he comes home from war he may reap the benefits of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and possibly suicide.  He WILL remember the many dead faces of friends and foes, staring into blank nothingness, warning us about future predicaments without moving a muscle.

The proverbial question, "Why?" drifts across their faces for all eternity.





 

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the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.

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AngryMycologist, I suspect you will find much you like in this tract by Lt. Gen. Smedley Butler (retired) of the US Marines. He wrote it in 1935.

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If we disagree with the fact that a war is underway, the primary place to direct our loathing is on the politicians who give the orders. They are the ones who dictate if, when, where, and how a war is fought. The secondary place is those institutions who campaigned for the war. If you disagree with a war, remember who wanted it and hold it against them.

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