Hence joining the army in the first place should be avoided, in times of war there are plenty of times to fight and die for what you believe in, and best of all, you choose YOURSELF who to fight and kill and when to risk your life. As a soldier you are willingly giving up your own integrity an acting merely as a tool, and that is pathetic.
One Chinese saying is "Maintaining an army for thousand days, employ the army for a brief moment." When the hard times comes, you wouldn't want to drag ill-equipped and poorly trained civilian and press them into service to defend themselves. You want an army that stand ready ,well trained and well equipped to do the job of defending the nation.
Like it or not, while you might detest the idea of an army, there are some people that won't hesitate to form an army and poised to rob you of your wealth, land etc etc.Prime example is Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan at WWII. It's not paranoia, greed can influence human to do a lot of nasty things.
Soldiers are used just as much (if not more) in agression as in defence. They aren't giving up anything but they're freedom, and someone who willingly gives up their freedom is in my eyes worthless.
Ever heard about "Freedom is everything but free"? So you also despise some soldiers that defend people's freedom? Without standing army, don't ever bother about freedom. Your nation are expansive and aggressive nation's breakfast.
I'm not a pacifist, I would fight with any means to protect myself and my loved ones, that doesn't mean I need to become a slave in a system that can use me for causes I do not support.
Against a well trained, well equipped soldiers that trained vigorously in fighting a war? Not everyone are naturally a Rambo or Simon Hayha. Even if you are, you wont contribute much in defending your nation. Nation that only rely on drafting citizen to defend themselves at times of war will always become prime target. A strong standing army may act as a deterrent, if it didn't worked, they'll defend the nation when invaded.
Hitlers war machine was just about the most effective army modern history has seen, but does that make it something to strive for? How about the roman empire? Pretty effective that too, but was it morally good?
That is why my previous comment are referring to some of the soldiers but not all soldiers. Those soldiers that on the aggressive offensive side were wrongly used because of their leader's fault. Soldiers can be heroes or enemies depend on whether they are soldiers that defending their country or invading other country. Your perspective and conditions let you view soldiers as a heroes or enemies. Heroic soldiers to other maybe are enemies soldiers to you.
The question is by which standarts. There are a lot of definitions considering it, particulary about heroism and heros in general.
Quite a lot of people join the military for the money, cause they lack any perspective and future. It has a reason why so many recruitment is done in socially deprived areas. And many of them do not really care about to either save, protect or do anything one would usualy conect with a noble warrior or heroism. A soldier is a human first a fighter later. So there are many definitions of heroic actions, joining the militay is not what I see as heroism. Even if it means that you give up parts of your life or individuality and protection you usualy have. Particularly when you know before you already join what they expect from you, for example "maybe" killing people.
This actualy is in my eyes a better example of a soldier beeing a "hero".
Yes some people joined the army because of money etc etc. But this doesn't mean you can deny the rest of the soldiers that are really and sincerely joined the army in order to protect their countrymen.
I don't know about the Western culture, but in Eastern culture people that lack any prospective and future wont bother joining the army that will put their life on risk. They rather do a way safer and easier job like gardener, waiter etc etc etc. Earning money by serving tea and mowing lawn beat earning money by being as a soldier where you have to train like a mule ,living a strict discipline life and living away from your families. Hell, some even rather become a beggar.
Either for money or really wanted to serve and protect, soldiers still become the vanguard that protect us when we're under attacked. They are the first line of defense in case our country is under attacked. Whether you gonna keep living in your country peacefully or being a refugee in other country are depended on the soldiers that serve as your protector.
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Maybe culture difference led people to have different views about soldiers. Kahgan, you came from Norway that relatively peaceful throughout the history might think soldiers as redundant or irrelevant, but to me as an Asian where our region and my homeland China is horribly suffered in WWII, soldiers(defending soldiers of course) in my view are actually play an important role in our life. We learned a hard lesson that when we didn't disturb other people doesn't necessary mean that other people won't offend us, the world is not that simple. We have to ready to defend ourselves from repeating the same misfortune. Remember not everyone share the same fortune of living peacefully without constant threat as your nation are. The day where every nations do not required any army to defend themselves and able to co-exist peacefully is still a very long distant away....
Back to topic:
[sarcasm]
THIS is the most badass mofos that actually worshiped by people.[sarcasm]
: .
(i really find it so similar to the evolution of buddhism)
