There is no one that knows the horrors of war better than those, civilian and
military, directly involved in it. There is no one who wants peace more than
who fought, for they know the insanity of war. They also know that to
prevent war, a strong military is necessary.
Let's put to rest also the fallacy that a conscripted army causes wars.
Every rebellion, revolution, uprising, and overthrow of government is caused
by volunteers! The American Revolution was started and fought by volunteers,
for there was no separate government to conscript people. The government in
control was Great Britain. The French Revolution was started by volunteers,
not conscripted soldiers. The Bolshevik Revolution of Marx, Trotsky and
Lenin was started by volunteers, not the Czar's army. The assasination of
Arch Duke Ferdinand was not by a conscript but by an individual, a
volunteer. Hitler's rise to power was the result of volunteers, not the
conscripted soldier. Hitler's volunteers, the brown-shirted, hob-nail booted
thugs and the Hitlerjugen, intimidated the population and the police force
alike to the extent that they were powerless to do anything. Hitler's Nazi
party was a minority party (amongst many parties) in the Bundestag, but when
it came time to elect Hitler as Vice-Chancellor all of his volunteers
appeared in uniform in the Bundestag and intimidated the others in not
opposing Hitler. It was well known what happened to people who took that
action. It was not Iran's army that overthrew the Shah, but volunteers. It
was not the conscripted army of any country that caused the Berlin Wall to
come down, but volunteers. Is it not volunteers, the Chechen rebels, that
are fighting Russian troops?
Roger Turk
Tucson, Arizona USA
