I really liked this article. I enjoyed the writing style and the subject is one that interests me a lot, as I've also managed to have a lot of fun traveling-and-working by Amtrak. But I guess I'm going to violate the entire moral of the story with the rest of my post. Because I kind of stopped and had to ask myself what the author was thinking with this line:

>> I didn't know how to reconcile his witless alcoholism with his tremendous sacrifice.

You must not know many soldiers. Or just people in general.

I know there are a lot of different people out there and a lot of different experiences, so I really don't need anyone replying with "my buddy did it for such-and-such and has never touched a drop of alcohol in his life". Not interested. But judging from literally every ex-soldier I've met, "witless alcoholism" is what defines and unifies military service. To some extent, that even includes my own parents, who I suspect didn't drink very much when I was a kid specifically because of their experiences in the military. And really, in a lot of respects that's just being young, sowing wild oats and whatnot. What is the difference between kids in the military and kids in college (and do not forget for a second that soldiering is mostly done by adults-in-name-only)? I suspect not much, other than a generally higher degree of physical fitness in the military.

Also judging from these ex-soldiers, joining the military is as much about "serving one's country" and "making a sacrifice" as going to college is about "learning", i.e. that's not really actually why most people do it and it only happens out of circumstance. I can't tell if any of the soldiers I've met had given any serious thought to the concept of injury or death before they volunteered. Because really, how much serious thought on such concepts is an 18-year-old even capable of? As a society, we literally force some of the most life-changing decisions on the people who are almost universally unprepared to evaluate their full set of options correctly. Most people seem to do it (both college and the military) because they're expected to, because they aren't aware of other options, and/or because they think it will be a good time. Or, at least in peacetime, I'd say that was the case.

Today, I don't know. Being 18 year olds, it's probably the same motivations. But we've been in active shooty-stabby-bomby action for thirteen years straight (I also really don't need any pedantic replies about official declarations of war). Living in DC, it's kind of hard to not notice the 11th of September pass by, thus my wife and I tend to avoid being in town on that day. And it's kind of hard to remember what day it is just about anywhere else. It's been a long time. Vietnam was slightly longer and I doubt anyone thinks we'll be done soon. Is this what Pearl Harbor felt like in 1953? Hell, we'd already been into and out of Korea by that time.

My point here is, if you're in the military now, you're volunteering for war. If you're an injured soldier, I'm sorry you got hurt. You didn't deserve it, because nobody deserves war and mayhem. But you volunteered for it. We need to stop saying "support the troops". We need to start saying "prevent kids from joining unjust war".