Give me Byzantine intrigue over death, any day.

So many non-"chickenhawks" have posted, I may as well, also:

The only uniforms I've ever worn belonged to the Boy Scouts and my high school's marching band. I've never discharged a firearm. There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, of men my age in the same category. Some of them are Senators and Congressmen.

My draft number was sufficiently high that I endured my year of I-A without fear of being called. I was prepared to enlist in the Navy if I were called. At the time (before my vision changed), I might've made aviation, with a view to the astronaut corps. Submarines were tempting, too (I don't take up a lot of space).

I opposed the war in Vietnam, as I opposed the invasion of Iraq, for the same reason. Akin to what Robert said elsewhere in this thread: there's an easily-discerned difference between defending one's country and enacting one administration's flavor of foreign policy.

I happen to (finally!) be reading McCullough's 1776, and some of you know I've become a self-directed scholar of the period. I would not have thought twice about volunteering then, or in any other situation where defense of who and what I love were in imminent danger. Same goes for WWII. WWI is too abstract for me to decide, but it seems more a case of interlocking diplomatic alliances than a defensive imperative.

I've also read enough Civil War history to understand that my decision to enlist, or not, would have depended on where I lived. I'm not into "past lives", except as idle daydreaming, but somehow gray and butternut seem to suit better than Federal blue. Buckskin, paint and feathers suit better than blue, too -- maybe it's that "defense of all I love" thing.

On the other hand -- and here's where the Byzantine intrigue comes back into the discussion -- there are times when the Bad Guys need to be Taken Out. It's called "decapitiation" in some circles. There are ways to do it that don't require mobilizing 100,000 troops for all the world to see (and three or more months to get it done).

Would I volunteer for that kind of duty? If the guys were sufficiently bad, yeah. But nobody approached me with the offer when I was young and spry enough to be of any use. Neither adjective applies now. Well, maybe "spry" still does...

Now here's the crux of the "chickenhawk" dilemma: In every age, there are men and women who would, and do, volunteer for their country's dirty work, no matter how dirty. The question comes to this: were I in the position to order them into harms' way for a justified cause, without having ever served in that capacity myself, would I?

Given sufficient justification, yes. But you know Goddamn well I would doublecheck the reasons first.