If there is one thing that afflicts western countries over time, its how they treated their servicemen (and women) after they were no longer useful as cannon fodder. Here in OZ after ww1 our returned servicemen were treated like sh*t. My grandfather who was a veteran of the Palestine campaign in ww1 threw his war medals out after being treated so badly during the depression. The lesson was learnt after ww2 where our servicemen were treated far better and received support for the rest of their life. That was my Dad's generation, mainly Pacific war veterans.
The wheels fell off with the Vietnam war where our vets were again treated badly and while it improved over time, the damage was done to many who had broken marriages, drug and violence relater problems.
I am agressively anti-war and have not supported a war since ww2 and while there is room for any country to defend itself, anything else is an abomination against the young of your own country. I have a simple view about sending young fellas to war, if you are not willing to support them for the rest of their life, don't send them to war.
Something that stuck in my mind that profoundly influenced my views on sending young fellas to war, I read an account of a young fella who was involved in the later trench warfare in ww1 when mustard gas was used and he sustained serious disfigurement from mustard gas. He survived and made it back to OZ but he was so grossly disfigured that he was never able to mix with people, meet a wife or have a normal life again. The report said that people who knew him could hear him crying at night in a room by himself because he was so lonely and his life was so desolate and without any future.
