by Donald Z. Smith

Created on: July 18, 2011   Last Updated: July 22, 2011

A different war has been fought each generation that has passed for the last 200 plus years for America.  There always has seemed to be an honorable cause for each war, and the proportion of each has been dependent on the size of the adversary.  All political viewpoints are generally presented causing national confusion on the true purpose of many wars.  However, the victims of war are not only counted by the dead and injured, but by the very youth recruited to fight such strifes.  Patriotism is the attribute sold by the military complex to seduce our young men and women to join the military ranks.  Recruitment of youth in the academic fields provides great success, as the military is seen as an economic avenue and an employment option for students not willing to continue to higher education or trade schools after high school.

After acceptance by the majority of the public of the patriotic reasons for a war and the enlistment of millions of our youth through various means, war is possible.  Each war has different reasons for starting and is prolonged for many years in most cases.  In cases where reasons for the war becomes clearly less than honorable, the naive public, that supported its existence, growing become discontent on the loss of life and tremendous financial expense.  Usually we are so entrenched in the war by that time, and it is allowed to exist.

The true tragedies are among the many young recruited in our military infatuated by the misrepresentation and glamorization of military service.  They awaken one day to the horrors of combat, watching the death and injury to their companions and often to themselves.  All those they knew as they grew up, except family, are congratulatory upon their enlistment, but soon forget and go on with their own civilian lives.  The military youth are left to sweating out the true consequences of war, and realize they have been suckered into the hardships that accompany war.  Not to say, that some wars have been honorable and necessary.  Many wars have been due to our assertion that a particular region is not displaying political beliefs that we share.  War is often provoked to  "help" a country aspire to our political ideals, and change a government that appears not to agree with what we prefer is democracy.

I was 19 and fought in a bloody conflict in Vietnam as a Marine infantryman.  Approximately 59,000 men and women died in that conflict from our great country.  Despite the many years of fighting, Vietnam was abandoned ands allowed to continue on the political course we objected to in our entry.  Not all war is honorable and carries underlying reasons that are not publicly displayed until we have entered the war.  The infatuations to me in Vietnam quickly dissolved when I carried our dead and laid in the mud from monsoons only to have the war ended before any victory.

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