Silverflux, if you cant figure it out for yourself and have to have someone tell you why they would or did join the military you honestly would not understand.

For the rest of those here that find humor in the death of a US soldier/marine/sailor/airman you should be glad that the internet exists; because as everyone well knows if you were to spew that crap in public you know that you would get your ass kicked in a very painful fashion.

Silverflux, you are mistaking shock for grief. Its no surprise/shock to anyone whether soldier or family member of soldier when a soldier dies in combat.

Please dont try to equate the military to a cult. To do so insults those qho have served and shows you to be ignorant and not deserving of the freedoms you have and enjoy. It also shows you to be the exact person that John Stewart Mill was describing when he said.. ‘War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.’

So when you see a veteran or military service member after your long day of creating websites and such you might consider thanking them for doing something that you are not able to bring yourself to do.

Silverflux you deserve freedom as much as the next guy. What you and all the other people who think/believe that war is never the answer deserve is a reality check. In fact if it were not for war you would not live in the society you currently do being able to enjoy the freedoms you do.

People who think that war is never the answer are the destroyers of civilization. Like parasites they take every advantage of a society created and maintained by their betters. They drain as much as they can, and replace it with a crude solipsism and work to crush the husk that remains. Their lives are ones of comfort and ease. Whats sad is that for in all their degrees and learning and rhetoric and billions and billions of words they have learned nothing worth knowing. For all intents and purposes they are barbarians.

Civilization does not rest upon their (your) shoulders, it rests upon the shoulders of men with guns. As George Orwell stated…”We sleep peaceably in our beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on our (your) behalf.”

Civilization and the ability to inflict violence go together and are inseparable. People such as yourself cannot understand this. They look upon men with guns like apes gaping at The Last Supper.

Most history books teach that Western Civilization began with the Greeks somewhere around 700 BC. Not so. It began with the Hebrews pushing into what they called ‘the Promised Land’ 500 years before. We forget that the most influential book in Western Civilization had its origins in the violence spread by the Israelite commander Joshua and his successors. The poetry of Solomon, the beauty of the Psalms, all rest upon the shoulders of Israelites with swords.

The contributions of the Greeks came to us through violence, of Greek against Persian and Greek against Greek. Aeschylus fought at Marathon and Salamis, Socrates at Delium, Demosthenes at Chaeronea. Aristotle tutored the future conqueror of the world, Alexander, who himself spread Greek culture as far as the Indus River. It is simply a waste of time to try and separate those who begat Western Civilization and those who used violence to promote it. Sometimes they were one and the same.

The Romans were likewise. Cicero served in the army. Caesar was a superb Latin stylist and man of letters. Horace served with Brutus at Philippi (42 BC). Virgil idealized Roman power, and both he and Maecenas were friends of Augustus. Suetonius and Pliny the Younger served under the Emperor Trajan. The emperors Hadrian and Aurelius wrote poetry. The Emperor Constantine legalized the spread of Christianity and so begat yet another facet of the spread of Western Civilization.

The Middle Ages also relied upon men of violence and men of books. Boethius worked for Theodoric the Great (520 AD). Justinian (r. 527 – 565) revised the entire Roman law code. Charlemagne built schools, began the first European Renaissance and himself spoke several languages. An entire style of troubadour poetry and epic literature, including The Song of Roland, flowed from the wars of Christian against Moslem in Spain.

The Renaissance was a time of great violence and high culture. Leonardo designed military machines. Michelangelo worked for that most militaristic of popes, Julius II. The ruthless Medici were great patrons of the arts. Dante fought at the battle of Campaldino (1289). Machiavelli undertook both diplomatic and military missions. Cervantes was with the Christian fleet at Lepanto (1571). Cortéz was a writer, and one of his soldiers was Bernal Diaz de Castillo who became a historian of the Conquest.

Many of the great Christian men of the day were not exactly shrinking violets either. The Jesuits were founded by Ignatius Loyola, who was a soldier. The gentle Francis of Assisi was a troubadour poet and mercenary. Aquinas formulated the Christian concept of ‘Just War.’ Las Casas was a historian of the Indies. Martin Luther relied upon the pikes of Protestant kings to spread his new faith.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the point. Western Civilization has always depended upon bayonets. Take away the bayonets and the culture they supported will crumble, and rather rapidly.

If our (your) society were to begin to crumble who will defend what remains of Western Civilization? Will you step up to the plate or will you be like Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and others like them?

I think you already know the answer. People like them will be swept away and forgotten. The people that will be remembered are those of Yorktown, of New Orleans, of Chapultepec, of Gettysburg, of San Juan Hill, of Saint-Mihiel, of Guadalcanal, of the Ardennes, of the Chosin River, of Tet, of Desert Storm, of Fallujah.

Enjoy your freedom.