Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran
I would have to qualify the statement to which you replied as, "Few people actively IN war, enjoy it." If few people outside of war enjoyed it, we wouldn't have so damn many.
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I would have to qualify that further and point out that the form of war is relevant. In the days when Upper Class Twits went on chauvauchees and everyone else got out of the way(which is pretty much what it is in the third world today) quite a few probably enjoyed war and little needs to be explained about that. In WWI people of every class had to endure mud and slime, and shells that didn't give you a chance to hit back. Patton and Junger seem to have enjoyed that but they were-eccentric. I haven't read Junger myself. Patton though, even in WWI was a mid-level officer with the power to control things rather then being cannon fodder. For most of the people on the Western Front, enjoying "playing the game" was beside the point for them because there was no game. They were just pieces and not particularly valuable ones. On the other hand what a lot of people enjoy is the sense of purpose, the comradeship and the guildlike traditions of military life rather then trenches. Those are the same kind of people that might be splendid firemen if politics had left the human race alone.