Not "nothing to say", but a diminished capacity to comprehend, owing to a lack of circumstances. A simple fact, which your exaggeration and attempts at reductio ad absurdam do nothing to change.

The "chickenhawk" aspect of war has probably been around as long as war itself. In this country, it's at least as old as Tom Paine's "summer soldiers and sunshine patriots". It lived right on the surface during the Civil War, when a draftee was permitted by law to pay someone else to serve in his place. Modern conscription law, even in wartime, has always left loopholes big enough for the wealthy and/or powerful to drive their children through to safety. That many haven't is to their credit. That many of their children volunteered anyway, or accepted the draft, is to their credit. The fact is not altered that many more (including a certain Texas oilman who himself was a decorated combat pilot) have steered their sons toward those loopholes.

Since we are approximately the same age, perhaps you remember, as I do, why the draft lottery was instituted in 1969: The soldiers serving in Vietnam had become, on average, the most economically and educationally disadvantaged armed force in modern American warfare.

So as not to concentrate on conscription: Let us not forget the salient reason why the all-volunteer force has, up to now, been successful in maintaining its recruitment quotas: "It's not just an adventure, it's a job." For many, it has been the only way to get a toehold on what our post-WWII parents called The American Dream. I'd love to see some numbers on the current active military, in and out of combat, comparing those who volunteered out of patriotic fervor engendered by 9/11 with those who volunteered because they needed the work.

Here's my point: Regardless of motive, the systems which have supplied the US armed forces with recruits have been, and continue to be, slanted away from the probability that anyone empowered to engage them in combat has a child in uniform. They therefore cannot claim to "know how it feels". They can sympathize, they can empathize, and God grant that they think long and hard about it before they commit the troops, but they cannot know.

Simple fact, no spin intended, no accusation of ulterior motive implied.

I'm beginning to see why some people can't get past the casualty count when talking about how a war is being fought or what progress is being made.

Good! Perhaps you may even come to understand why "some people" are dumfounded at some other people who appear to disregard the casualty count altogether, as long as they can convince themselves that they're "winning".