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Re: Pacifists, medics etc
Posted By: Brunnen-G, on host 203.96.111.200
Date: Thursday, July 4, 2002, at 00:16:36
In Reply To: Re: Unpatriotic Draftdogers posted by Gortman64 on Wednesday, July 3, 2002, at 20:56:56:

> OK, a pysoclogical problem with killing another man is perfectly normal and understanding. If you are a pacifist, you vould become a medic. I don't mean a doctor, I mean the guy that crawls out into the field and drags the injured guy's body back to the doctor.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your posts, so if I'm wrong, I apologise in advance. But your view of military life seems to be very focused on conspicuous heroics in combat. Why else would you need to specify the above scenario? Because it sounds so much cooler and more exciting and more dangerous than just "being a doctor". To be blunt, your concept of military life seems restricted to what a sheltered teenager might pick up from action movies and his admiration for a relative who *almost* went to a real war.

There's nothing wrong with this, in itself. But your own hopes and dreams aren't good reasons to suggest everybody *else* should choose this path. And you still haven't given any reasons which don't come from your personal emotions.

You obviously have a strong desire for a military career, and part of that comes from the feeling that you will be serving your country. That's fine. However, you ought to think about whether idealism is what keeps individual soldiers going in a bad combat situation. I haven't been in combat but I've been in some (very loosely) similar situations, and believe me, the last thing on your mind is going to be the ideals which made you get into it originally. Maybe it works for some. But I have a feeling that if you intend to be a career soldier, you need to have some better reasons than abstract idealism, or at least some secondary ones.

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