There was a certain US general who made a comment following a bloody battle.
"I wish that we could bottle the stench of a battlefield and save it for our political leaders. And the next time the bastards start talking about sending troops to fight for some stupid cause, every damned member of congress should be made to take a good whiff. Maybe then they will find some other way of settling things without sending our boys off to get die in some foreign country that nobody has ever heard of."
The military profession is perhaps unique in that its members really don't want to put to use the skills that they have learned.
In spite of Hollywood's best efforts to convince everyone that soldiers are mad dog killers, ready to loot, rape and murder at the first chance, I've never met one of these animals in all of my years wearing the uniform. Rather, I have had the privilage of serving with men and women who truely love their country and the ideals that it stands for.
Much has been made of those who fall short, and these criminals are justly punished. But you never hear about the marine who gives his dinner to a starving child. Or the seamen on liberty that, instead of getting drunk and laid, volunteer their precious leave time to build a new roof for a orphanage. Nobody mentions the soldier who pulls trapped civilians from a collapsed building following an earthquake. And nobody cares about the airman that grabs a man as he falls and renders CPR until the paramedics arrive. That too is a face of the military that is never mentioned.
The military is indeed unique.
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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