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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (46822)	1/26/2008 10:51:21 AM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542043

The Spartans had it refined in their day, so it was a hoary chestnut even then. I have my books boxed away while I paint my great room, so I can't get to Bloom's The Lucifer Principlebut I seem to recall that he described this same sort of 'admired warrior' behavior amongst primate tribes; that young males would be rewarded for raids on neighboring tribes. It seems that the Give Peace a Chance crowd has their work cut out for them <g>.

To: epicure who wrote (46822)	1/26/2008 1:43:44 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542043

If you're inferring that soldiers go to war to get laid, I think you may be getting off (no pun intended) on the wrong track regarding modern day Western warriors since there's a long time between tours and there's probably not much sleeping around going on in war zones. When they come home the number of age-group available women has shrunken as the "Jodies" (those are the guys who get your girl while your off fighting) have been busy. And the girls that are still available aren't impressed with your warrior status since they haven't seen you in the company of the men whose utmost respect you earned as you secured your place in the combat pecking ladder. So, although there may be vestiges of some kind of instinctual "beat your chest" incentive for those going to war, the truth is that the only people who can see you beat your chest are other soldiers who may be beating their own chests. But soldiers still march off to war. Maybe some of the reasons why people want to go to war, or don't resist being sent, are that some are curious, some are adventurous, some feel duty bound, some are paying the dues necessary to secure a vocation that pays them more than any other job they could likely find and some are simply the kinds of people that get blown by the wind and end up in a combat zone. Once in the "game," however, a soldier's continued participation can be like getting hooked on drugs where everything else pales and the reality of being a member of a closely bonded "tribe of soldiers" together with the adrenalin nature of war can capture them and dim their memories of peacetime lives. And then, like "King Rat" in Clavell's book, one day the war is over for them and they have to step back into a slower, safer, less intense existence; one where they no longer experience the intense adrenalin and the brotherhood of soldiers relying on each other for their very survival. For them, it's simply an excursion on a path that led to a dead end. The really interesting and critical question is "What makes so many old men (and, in deference to Hillary Clinton, old women) so willing and sometimes eager to send our children to war?" I wish I had a good answer to that question. Ed