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Comment by SEJeff | Hacker News Reader

This experience is precisely why you should never ask a war veteran if they've killed someone. Many times they have, but more often than not they've had to watch someone they were close with die.

Source: am a veteran

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Maybe if we talked about the horrors of war more we'd have less of them in the future.

I wish, but the fact that there was a WWII does not hold out much hope.

WW2 made Europeans and east Asians anti war -- the people in whose countries the wars were fought. It's only Americans and Canadians who view WW2 as the "good" war. Our countries got to play the hero role and beat the super villain, we were largely untouched (relative to what other countries suffered), and at the end there was years of economic prosperity. What's not to like?

Sorry if I did not make it clear - the much-discussed horrors of WWI did not stop WWII.

WWII was more like a second act of the same war really. Wounds were not closed.

Yes - I tend to the view that WW2 in Europe was a continuation of WW1, while the War in the Pacific was essentially an independent conflict going on concurrently. Even from that perspective, Germany was not facing an existential threat in 1939, yet chose war.

Maybe if everyone had to serve we'd achieve the same. Forcing people to talk about some of their profoundly dark times often because they needed a job isn't the way to go about it.

That would require constant and horrific war, otherwise those that served wouldn't see anything. Seems like a non-starter.

Well, it don't know where you are, but the US pretty much has that covered.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+long+has+america+been+at...

The realization you might be called on to kill your fellow man or have another human kill you over imaginary lines and ideals might be enough to get the point across....

You don't realize you might be called until you are.

It's a nice hope, but the people initiating the wars are not the ones who fight the wars. We'd have less wars if bankers and politicians had to fight in them.

Would pay to watch a banker fight a politician

> It's a nice hope, but the people initiating the wars are not the ones who fight the wars

True enough, but wars tend not to last long after they lose public support (or the population 'suffers from low morale'). Having veterans speak out and seeing flag-draped coffins on the front pages tends to do that (see Vietnam), which is why modern governments try to control the war narrative ("embedded" journalism, psy-ops, etc)

This sounds like a line from Riker on STTNG. Paraphrased: "Maybe if we felt everyone's deaths as closely as we do the ones close to us, human history would be a whole lot less bloody."

One of my neighbours is a Vet and I've never asked.

I have listened when he's brought it up on his own accord, when he's been on both ends of war violence [giving it or receiving it]. They're not the prettiest images to imagine, let alone experience first hand as he did, but it's mine to listen and his to tell.

Thankyou, this is exactly the best thing in the world for someone struggling with seeing things that no sensible human being should see.

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