The Yeti\’s Cyber Smithy

“Lives and blood that we gladly have shed”

War seems often the first thing on the politicians want and the last things soldiers desire. I don’t think we are running short of politicians. I wonder about soldiers. I am not commenting here on the death tolls of war, but the minds of the children we raise. My wife tells me that if our children decide to join the military, she will fight that decision tooth and nail. It seems what was good enough for her husband isn’t good enough for her children and I can respect that. What parent doesn’t want better for their children. My question is, what is better?

It seems we are raising a generation of lovers, or so we like to think. I wonder if we have not raised a culture of people who can not feel the range of emotions that humans are capable. It seems few are willing to shed “lives and blood” and I wonder if that is not because we have not raised our children not to feel strongly enough about anything to do so.

I do not want to raise blood thirsty children, but neither do I want to raise children who are unwilling or unprepared to make war when war is required. Should someone attack one of my children with serious force, I hope the other would not hesitate to use serious force against the attacker to the point of not only shedding the attacker’s blood, but if need be to take the attacker’s life.

Of course this does not require military service. Truth be told, while I very much see the need for a military and respect those who serve to the point of always telling a person in uniform “thank you”, I think it is hard to connect a deep emotional feeling to the way the military currently conducts itself. During WWI yes, during WWII sure. But today we tend to feel very secure behind our wall of technology and nuclear weapons and thus, we do not generally see a threat against our way of life. Yes, the threat is there but I don’t think it is felt the same way.

So I wonder what would happen in the case of a U.S. invasion. Not that I think the United States will be invaded Red Dawn style. Maybe I just showed my age. Red Dawn was a movie in which the US was invaded by paratroopers and ground forces, no nukes. In the small town where the movie was set, the local Highschool sports team took up arms and became rebels by the same name as their sports team. I think it was wolverines. I wonder if something similar would happen today or if we would all just role over and learn to speak Spanish and Russian (the languages of the invaders in the movie).

I wonder if as a nation we haven’t lost that John Wayne attitude of our grandparents and their parents.