> It is every mans' duty to serve his country.

And joining the military is the only way this can be done? I serve my country by paying taxes which allow the armed forces to exist in the first place.

In fact, I can think of all sorts of people who have served this country very well without being in the military (it helps that we had no standing army of any worth up through World War I). Of the "Founding Fathers" only Washington springs to mind as somebody who is looked up to for his military leadership. The other great American figures from our history are generally statesmen. We are not a country that particularly holds the military in a high regard (which isn't to say we don't appreciate what they do for us, just that military conquest is not really much of the American character) -- I think most of us view it as a necessary expenditure, but not a particularly pleasant one.

I'm off on a tangent, but my point is this: I hate the view that everyone should go into the military (a worse one is advocating mandatory universal conscription) and I find it out of line with what most people think. Wars did not make this country great, and if everyone went off and played soldier for a few years I think we would be *worse* off.

Stephen