Telling kids to say 'no' to war | csmonitor.com

This article from the Christian Science Monitor tells the tale of "Veterans for Peace" a group of war vets that go from school to school telling kids not to enlist in the armed services, a kind of counter balance to military recruiters. Their point being that war is hell and that is something that the recruiters and Army commercials don't talk about. Some of the group is off the mark, feeling that war should be avoided at all costs which would of course leave the country open to any and all that wish to invade. But overall their idea of letting kids know what war is really like helps them get a view they would probably get nowhere else.

It is important that someone is bringing this message to kids and it should be a particularly important lesson that parents should teach their own children. This is really a matter outside of how a person feels about war in general. America is at its very core a mercenary country. Perhaps more than any other nation in the world America has adopted Adam Smith's ideas of individual self-interest in order to advance society as a whole. If there is one idea that makes up whom we are as Americans and what we have accomplished as a country, this is it. Yet in times of greatest need we abandon this system and send the young to die by telling them it is their patriotic duty or by force when there is a draft.

The reason that we have achieved such far and away global dominance is not that we are able to throw more troops in the battlefield but because we are an economic powerhouse. Money is the primary winner of wars. I don't mean to take anything away from the soldiers who fought and died for this country and are currently fighting and dying for this country, in fact I feel that we owe them an enormous debt. The country is able to get soldiers at a very cheap cost by basically telling naive kids that it is their duty to do so. Militaries that win wars don't just show up when they are needed but are built up over time with tax dollars. So many people make large amounts of money in the creation of this military and then we ask those that give the most to do it because it is their duty?

There is not currently a draft and no one is forced to fight but a great deal of soldiers are there because society, friends and family have told them it is the right thing to do. While it is a patriotic thing for them to do and it benefits all Americans a great deal their friends and family should not push them into the military but should tell them they should not fight for country but that they should fight if paid accordingly.