Atelia wrote:GOram wrote:
Yeah, because seeing some poor bastard get his guts flensed by round shot is honourable. What about that infantry man who's trying to crawl away, but he can't see to move because a cavalry sabre just slashed his face open, I bet you he feels real good about himself right now. Maybe that man over there feels honourable, even as he burns to death because wadding has started fires and he has a .79 calibre ball in his leg.
Combat has never been honourable. It never will be honourable. I get the feeling that anyone who thinks other wise is naive to what warfare actually is.
Then you shouldn't trust your feelings. Man is naturally attuned for fighting, it is the sacrifice and willingness to take risk that makes soldiers venerable, and it is the willingness to accept the yoke of fighting for a cause that shows a mans sense of justice and glory, warfare is the true showing of mans abilities and our most valued attribute -Strength-, the honour of combat is about the bigger picture.
I remember reading something about the morale of RAF bomber crews during the Second World War. They did something called a "tour" you see, comprising of 30 operations - a trip to Germany counting as one full Op, a raid against France or Italy counting as half. After the first five trips, morale spiked upwards. Crews realised they could do it. After the 11th trip, it plummeted and remained that way. This was because they had realised they were going to die, and in many cases die badly. They had seen it happen to other aircraft, and the mathematics of the situation made survival a statistical impossibility. They came to terms with it. But they carried on. Night after night, the vast majority went on and did the job. They bombed, they were shot at and many of them brought dead or dying crew home with them. But they carried on. Why? Honour? Glory? A man's sense of justice? No. They did it for their mates. They did it because bomber crews were a family. They did it because the fear of being thought fearful was worse than fear itself.
The idea of fighting for honour, glory and what have you is bollocks. Perhaps one or two men fight for medals, but most fight for the mates. On no level is warfare honourable. It is not glorious. It is about young men dying, often horribly. You can but hope they did it for a good national cause. Putting it bluntly, warfare is an aberration. It should not be desired, and nor should service in one. They are occasionally necessary evils, to rid the world of something worse, but one should never pretend that death in combat is glorious.
