reply to post by LiquidMirage
Tell that to the Marines, LiquidMirage. Start with this Marine. Tell me all about how this nation, which the founders didn't even believe should have
a standing army, can only be fully appreciated and participated in by people who have been shot at.
I lost more friends to gunfire in highschool than I did in the Marine Corps (and I'm not talking about just a couple in either hand), and I learned a
heck of a lot more about living in America and what can go wrong if we don't live up to our civic responsibilities from the former rather than from
the later.
Maintaining and employing military force is one of the least American things that America does. It's not the epitome of American patriotism, but
rather a necessary evil which we should seek to exercise only at the absolute minimum level practical, because its very essence is undemocratic. Very
few people are cut out for it, particularly people from democratic societies, and thank God for that, because a society composed chiefly of ideal
soldiers would crumble from the inside out within months.
Leave civilization in the hands of civilians; they have more experience with it than militants.