To tell you the truth, I don't think military service gives a public servant any special insight in deciding if war is a valid foreign policy. I think that by the time a man or woman comes of age to join the military, they possess all the tools they need to decide right or wrong. I think the basic building blocks of our personalities that determine if we're to become great leaders are set in stone long before we reach the age of the battlefield.

Look at my own experience in the military. I saw the same things my shipmates saw every day and yet some took the experience completely different than I did. Where I saw tremendous waste of resources and a structure that discouraged innovative ideas, others saw an environment that they believed enriched their lives. I was aghast at how incompetent and reprehensible a vast majority of the leadership I encountered was and others around me saw opportunity to flourish under such a system. I was repulsed when a fellow sub sailor expressed this desire to blow up a Soviet sub we were trailing and yet others around chimed right in about how "cool" that would be.

The military didn't mold my way of thinking anymore than it molds the thinking of the rednecks that often find their home there. I met some exceptional people while in there but don't ever be so blind to believe that there's something special about someone just because they put in their time or faced enemy rifles. Most came out much as they came in and often lost a bit of themselves in the flow.