At least it seems to be that way for boys. We are obsessed with playing war, playing soldier, cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and team sports, which do seem to be a surrogate and substitute for conflict.

I know I was when I was a kid, and even today, when I intellectually understand the horror of combat, I still am fascinated by military history, the courage, drama and the glamour of war, the cameraderie of the military. In the US, the easy accessibility of firearms helps extend this obsession into adulthood, under a variety of different disguises and justifications--patriotism, honor, sport, politics, manliness. Long after men are no longer realistically capable of fighting, they still fancy themselves as warriors, and experts on warfare. Its not quite as bad today, when we are collectively a bit better educated and experienced. But when I was younger, I was bombarded with, and eagerly consumed, war toys, movies, TV, comic books, and boy's games were saturated with the concept.

I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that while child bearing and nurturing females are essential to group survival, males are expendable, and the surplus has been expended in conflict with other tribes. Once again, our destiny is determined by the biological fact that a woman can breed at most a few times in her youth, while a man can father a baby for most of the days of his life.

Still, real war, particularly modern, industrial war, fought for abstract political and economic reasons, is very different from the monkey games kids play, or for that matter, the natural conflicts which arise between troops of grown-up monkeys. Modern soldiers must undergo rigorous (and rarely fully successful)training to prepare them for real combat. And when exposed to the real thing they quickly lose all their enthusiasm for the idea. And those who survive the experience are usually reticent to talk about it.