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In America, you are required to believe that all soldiers are heroes, otherwise the volunteer rates would be much lower. There are soldiers who do heroic deeds, but dying in and of itself doesn't make you a hero, or a martyr. What if a soldier died of old age while fighting in this endless war? Does that make them a hero? They still died while at war....?
If we stopped calling all soldiers heroes, it would certainly take some of the glamor out of wars. Maybe then fewer people would have to become heroes by dying? Of course, then there would be conscription. Do conscripted soldiers who are KIA count as heroes?
I imagine that saying soldiers are not heroes pisses a bunch of people off. But in reality, there is usually a huge secondary reason to go to war besides what the papers say (ie - OIL, private enterprise beneficiaries (blackwater, haliburton, etc), political power increase, etc) and the glamor and canonizing of those who volunteer to get killed isn't doing any of the actual soldiers any favors, it's only helping those who would see us continue to send our youth halfway around the world to die painful and tragic deaths.
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These are the good old days...
formerly Murp0434
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