Raoul, you are so right and I saw it first hand. I joined the Navy back in 1976 shortly after the full withdrawal from Vietnam. I was floundering in college, unsure what I really wanted to be in life and knew that the military would give me the discipline to get on with my responsibilities. Even though we were in a bitter cold war with the Soviets, absolutely none of my motivation was in getting a chance to be part of a force confronting them. While I was on the nuclear sub somewhere under the Pacific Ocean I spent my little spare time playing my guitar in the nucleonics lab to keep my sanity.

Occassionally we'd find some Soviet sub or surface ship to follow around or hang out in some port basically spying. I remember one day where we were in the mess hall watching a video feed of the periscope and seeing some Soviet navy ship bobbing around. One of the torpedomen (generally down in the evolutionary scale) remarked how he'd love to just blow that ship out of the water. All I could think of was that there was some guy on that ship off in some corner strumming his balalyka and wanting to be somewhere else.

Bottom line was most of my closer friends on that ship had no desire to kill anyone and dreaded the thought of war. They were all there for the same reasons I was, an education, job skills and to sort out life a bit. Would we have fought if ordered? Sure, but very few would've looked forward to it and none that I knew ever expected to die for it.

My guess is a great deal of the people in Iraq right now had no desire to go to the Mideast and kill people and few really expected the threat of death to be great when they signed up. Hell, many are reservists that got called out of normal everyday jobs to get shipped over there. Most reservists I know keep that connection only for the supplemental salary and benefits it gives them, not so they'll be frontline troops.

Raoul, believe me. There's something about the internet that draws neocons like flies. It's really not representative of the life we lead most days in America. I doubt most of these morons have ever seen the military or actual combat or have children that are nearing the age they could get sucked into some unjust war. They're simply scared and insecure men who somehow feel that their tough, macho exterior somehow masks their real weaknesses. I'm sure they have their counterparts in Europe.