On Wed, Mar 02, 2011 at 02:16:05PM -0500, Kris Coward wrote:
>
> My mother's side of my family is Polish. I used to think that my oldest
> aunt on that side was intolerably crazy. At some point as I got older
> (though I don't think it was until my late teens or early 20s), I
> remembered that she was born in 1938, and finally put 2 and 2 together.
> She's still crazy, but the ways in which she's crazy make a lot more
> sense now (and have become tolerable as a result).
[Nod] I know that one; grew up with it around me. A lot of Russians of
my generation hate Germans. I don't, but that's just me (I don't want to
keep track of who I'm supposed to hate; not my kink.)
> I really don't think there's any virtue in war, except that some people
> endure more of it than they have to, in order to spare others the
> horror.
Agreed, completely. There are times when there's no other choice but to
go kill other human beings - but it's not anything to glory in. I'm a US
Army veteran, and I didn't sign up because it would be "fun", or because
I'd "get to go kick some ass"; I did it because our people got taken
hostage in Iran, and I felt that I had an obligation, a way to pay back
for what I got when I emigrated to this country. But talking to my
fellow soldiers, who had grown up on "exciting" war movies was...
disillusioning. I could only hope that they would never encounter war,
or at least that a significant proportion of them would survive their
first contact with reality.
Ben
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