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War is a call to power and a purpose. It's also disgusting, but a man can get used to anything.

ShabbosGoy 8y ago
Since this was written in the 80s and it’s Esquire, it’s highly possible that the author is a military-industrial complex shill. Or an apologist at best. The only people who love war are corrupted individuals. They have no morals.
- TheAdamAndChe 8y ago
  When I was a young man, the military appealed to me. I liked its presentation of power. Its structure, order, and clear roles seemed to provide a sense of purpose. Maybe war itself would be bad, but the structures and forces that war brings seem like they wouldn't necessarily be bad for everyone. Not everyone thinks or feels like you. That doesn't necessarily make them morally corrupt individuals.
  - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
    > Not everyone thinks or feels like you. That doesn't necessarily make them morally corrupt individuals. Who are you trying to convince? :) If violence appeals to you, then by all means, embrace it. If you are a morally wicked person, then embrace it. But denying your true nature is strange to me.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    All of the things you listed could also be found on an oil rig: clear roles, a sense of purpose, and the sleep deprivation (not listed but it builds character.) It's quite close to the Keynesian "it's good for the government to spend therefore it's good buy fighters" argument: sure, it creates jobs/funds research, but why not spend the same effort (and far fewer lives) on building the next supercollider or something? War can be a laudable sacrifice if it's necessary but it seems that some are trying to abstract the "good" from the condition.
- 1000units 8y ago
  I agree with you except for the morals part. I think there's a fancy name for looking back fondly on traumatic experiences.
- tatersolid 8y ago
  > The only people who love war are corrupted individuals. They have no morals. Says a person who has never truly faced a grave moral test in his life. I have known many veterans of horrific combat from Okinawa through Afghanistan. They all will tell you they loved it in some bizarre, insane fashion. Yet these same people are the most trustworthy, truly moral people I have ever known. They have touched the abyss, and you and I have not. They understand things we never will.
  - watwut 8y ago
    Saying that you love war is like love massive earthquake in habitated area. That is what people react to - they are aware of massive destruction, hunger (both soldiers and civilians), freezing babies, break of laws, abuse, thousands of families without resources, displaced, soldiers being invalides till rest of their lives. Veterans being unable to live in peace again. War means rise of authoritarian regimes and terrorist groups too. War is not just action and adrenalin. It is also rape and toddlers dying of hunger. It is ethnic massacres.
  - ShabbosGoy 8y ago
    There’s a difference between being willing to die for certain ideals (i.e. like the Gauls during Julius Caesar’s campaigns) and loving wanton bloodshed. That’s the point I was trying to make. If you can’t understand the difference between fighting a defensive war and an aggressive war, you need a reality check. Also, I’m not sure why both my replies were flagged - I believe I was acting extremely civil.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      But it's neither the willingness to die or the bloodshed itself. Thích Quảng Đức had the willingness and courage to die for a cause, but you'll have a great difficulty recruiting many to do what he did.
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Look, this "abyss" you're talking about can be "reached" by anybody, and I don't have to say how. It's not actually something that we want ourselves or our fellow man to do. It doesn't make you better, if any of it sticks you're worse. Going on deployment and finding something that improves you is like going to a bar/casino in Las Vegas and finding Mormonism. Sure, it can happen, but it's not what happens.
whatshisface 8y ago
>but a man can get used to anything. If this were true PSTD would not actually happen. Wouldn't the cure just be more exposure, if you could get used to it? >War is a call to power and a purpose. We're a long time past when the raiding hordes would actually be profiting from their own raiding. Like it or not we live in a country so rich that we have essentially nothing significant to gain by pillaging: the cost for us to conduct warfare is greater than the entire productivity of the nations we invade, even before the bombs start lowering their GDP. As a result it's starting to get close to a century since the last time the US or an allied country fought a war with a purpose stronger than tenuous political chessplaying. Evidence for this: what fraction of our currently deployed armed forces have a lot to say about the political situation where they are fighting? Apparently the answer is almost none, because they're not there to talk about geopolitics. As a result the sense of purpose is isolated in nicely lit rooms while the direct costs are allocated to people who don't focus on the broader goals. It seems that Futurism is back in vouge, but we'd better remember that the reason it fell out the first time was the fact that an actual war got started. The only two environments where that view can sustain itself are rooms full of warlords who profit and loose in actual war, and rooms full of intellectuals who profit and loose from nothing and who expect to survive in any case.
- fapjacks 8y ago
  Now this is something which is misunderstood quite a lot. Almost nobody gets it, though, sometimes not even the doc at the VA. But how could he? He's never been over there. And even if he was over there, he was a desk jockey, a fobbit (you can google that one). Maybe it's best to think of it -- PTSD -- like a switch. And the switch gets turned on when you deploy: The switch that activates the soldier on the battlefield, scanning for threats, vigilant and ready to fight in every situation. Soldier mode -- the mode you love to be in, for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. And then when you get back home, the switch gets turned off: Civilian mode. Once again the civilian slob that goes to the movies and eats a big tub of popcorn. Then when you deploy again, the switch is turned on again: Master of chaos. You come home again, the switch is turned off again: Master of Sunday afternoon naps. The problem is that at some point, you come home and you realize the switch can't be switched off. It's just a part who you are now. It's now the way you're wired: The first time you go to the movies as a civilian with the switch turned on, you realize you're surrounded by strangers in the darkness for an hour and a half of intense visual and auditory stimulation. Walking down the street to the restaurant, you're actually on patrol, and nothing's more dangerous than a dismounted patrol through the city. You start leaving all the lights on in the house at night, because the things that killed your friends often came out of the darkness. You can't sleep, because of the lights, and because you're hypervigilant and every little noise signals it's time to dispense violence. And if there's one thing that compounds the problem, it's a lack of sleep. This is how you end up in situations where somebody knocks on the door when you're laying on the couch chasing naps that never come, and the mailman smiling at you when you open the door has no idea you're holding a loaded firearm in the hand he can't see. And worse yet, lots of people in this situation drink until they pass out, just to try and get some sleep. But this switch doesn't get turned off when you're drinking at the bar. And on top of that, all the people and all that noise makes things worse, and....... The problem is that indeed, you've gotten used to it. All of that has been your reality for long enough that you can't turn it off. But our culture has no place for people like this. Our culture is definitely not used to this, and won't get used to this. Relationships cannot handle the strain, so they disintegrate. And employers don't put up with that shit, no matter how cool they are. And lots of people don't try to get help, even in places where the VA normally does a good job and knows how to handle these problems. So in the end, completely alienated by the rest of their communities, some kill themselves. Others end up on the street. Others spend the rest of their lives teetering on the edge of sanity, trying to play a trivial, vapid game with trivial, vapid rules that are always at odds with the life-or-death rules of combat they're wired for. And this is actually why people don't understand unless they've been over there.

Since this was written in the 80s and it’s Esquire, it’s highly possible that the author is a military-industrial complex shill. Or an apologist at best. The only people who love war are corrupted individuals. They have no morals.

TheAdamAndChe 8y ago
When I was a young man, the military appealed to me. I liked its presentation of power. Its structure, order, and clear roles seemed to provide a sense of purpose. Maybe war itself would be bad, but the structures and forces that war brings seem like they wouldn't necessarily be bad for everyone. Not everyone thinks or feels like you. That doesn't necessarily make them morally corrupt individuals.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  > Not everyone thinks or feels like you. That doesn't necessarily make them morally corrupt individuals. Who are you trying to convince? :) If violence appeals to you, then by all means, embrace it. If you are a morally wicked person, then embrace it. But denying your true nature is strange to me.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  All of the things you listed could also be found on an oil rig: clear roles, a sense of purpose, and the sleep deprivation (not listed but it builds character.) It's quite close to the Keynesian "it's good for the government to spend therefore it's good buy fighters" argument: sure, it creates jobs/funds research, but why not spend the same effort (and far fewer lives) on building the next supercollider or something? War can be a laudable sacrifice if it's necessary but it seems that some are trying to abstract the "good" from the condition.
1000units 8y ago
I agree with you except for the morals part. I think there's a fancy name for looking back fondly on traumatic experiences.
tatersolid 8y ago
> The only people who love war are corrupted individuals. They have no morals. Says a person who has never truly faced a grave moral test in his life. I have known many veterans of horrific combat from Okinawa through Afghanistan. They all will tell you they loved it in some bizarre, insane fashion. Yet these same people are the most trustworthy, truly moral people I have ever known. They have touched the abyss, and you and I have not. They understand things we never will.
- watwut 8y ago
  Saying that you love war is like love massive earthquake in habitated area. That is what people react to - they are aware of massive destruction, hunger (both soldiers and civilians), freezing babies, break of laws, abuse, thousands of families without resources, displaced, soldiers being invalides till rest of their lives. Veterans being unable to live in peace again. War means rise of authoritarian regimes and terrorist groups too. War is not just action and adrenalin. It is also rape and toddlers dying of hunger. It is ethnic massacres.
- ShabbosGoy 8y ago
  There’s a difference between being willing to die for certain ideals (i.e. like the Gauls during Julius Caesar’s campaigns) and loving wanton bloodshed. That’s the point I was trying to make. If you can’t understand the difference between fighting a defensive war and an aggressive war, you need a reality check. Also, I’m not sure why both my replies were flagged - I believe I was acting extremely civil.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    But it's neither the willingness to die or the bloodshed itself. Thích Quảng Đức had the willingness and courage to die for a cause, but you'll have a great difficulty recruiting many to do what he did.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Look, this "abyss" you're talking about can be "reached" by anybody, and I don't have to say how. It's not actually something that we want ourselves or our fellow man to do. It doesn't make you better, if any of it sticks you're worse. Going on deployment and finding something that improves you is like going to a bar/casino in Las Vegas and finding Mormonism. Sure, it can happen, but it's not what happens.

whatshisface 8y ago

>but a man can get used to anything. If this were true PSTD would not actually happen. Wouldn't the cure just be more exposure, if you could get used to it? >War is a call to power and a purpose. We're a long time past when the raiding hordes would actually be profiting from their own raiding. Like it or not we live in a country so rich that we have essentially nothing significant to gain by pillaging: the cost for us to conduct warfare is greater than the entire productivity of the nations we invade, even before the bombs start lowering their GDP. As a result it's starting to get close to a century since the last time the US or an allied country fought a war with a purpose stronger than tenuous political chessplaying. Evidence for this: what fraction of our currently deployed armed forces have a lot to say about the political situation where they are fighting? Apparently the answer is almost none, because they're not there to talk about geopolitics. As a result the sense of purpose is isolated in nicely lit rooms while the direct costs are allocated to people who don't focus on the broader goals. It seems that Futurism is back in vouge, but we'd better remember that the reason it fell out the first time was the fact that an actual war got started. The only two environments where that view can sustain itself are rooms full of warlords who profit and loose in actual war, and rooms full of intellectuals who profit and loose from nothing and who expect to survive in any case.

fapjacks 8y ago
Now this is something which is misunderstood quite a lot. Almost nobody gets it, though, sometimes not even the doc at the VA. But how could he? He's never been over there. And even if he was over there, he was a desk jockey, a fobbit (you can google that one). Maybe it's best to think of it -- PTSD -- like a switch. And the switch gets turned on when you deploy: The switch that activates the soldier on the battlefield, scanning for threats, vigilant and ready to fight in every situation. Soldier mode -- the mode you love to be in, for all the reasons mentioned in this thread. And then when you get back home, the switch gets turned off: Civilian mode. Once again the civilian slob that goes to the movies and eats a big tub of popcorn. Then when you deploy again, the switch is turned on again: Master of chaos. You come home again, the switch is turned off again: Master of Sunday afternoon naps. The problem is that at some point, you come home and you realize the switch can't be switched off. It's just a part who you are now. It's now the way you're wired: The first time you go to the movies as a civilian with the switch turned on, you realize you're surrounded by strangers in the darkness for an hour and a half of intense visual and auditory stimulation. Walking down the street to the restaurant, you're actually on patrol, and nothing's more dangerous than a dismounted patrol through the city. You start leaving all the lights on in the house at night, because the things that killed your friends often came out of the darkness. You can't sleep, because of the lights, and because you're hypervigilant and every little noise signals it's time to dispense violence. And if there's one thing that compounds the problem, it's a lack of sleep. This is how you end up in situations where somebody knocks on the door when you're laying on the couch chasing naps that never come, and the mailman smiling at you when you open the door has no idea you're holding a loaded firearm in the hand he can't see. And worse yet, lots of people in this situation drink until they pass out, just to try and get some sleep. But this switch doesn't get turned off when you're drinking at the bar. And on top of that, all the people and all that noise makes things worse, and....... The problem is that indeed, you've gotten used to it. All of that has been your reality for long enough that you can't turn it off. But our culture has no place for people like this. Our culture is definitely not used to this, and won't get used to this. Relationships cannot handle the strain, so they disintegrate. And employers don't put up with that shit, no matter how cool they are. And lots of people don't try to get help, even in places where the VA normally does a good job and knows how to handle these problems. So in the end, completely alienated by the rest of their communities, some kill themselves. Others end up on the street. Others spend the rest of their lives teetering on the edge of sanity, trying to play a trivial, vapid game with trivial, vapid rules that are always at odds with the life-or-death rules of combat they're wired for. And this is actually why people don't understand unless they've been over there.