I do not worship the ground our military walks on

[Lydia Leftcoast]

337. So "going along" is the default mode

not heroism. Did you ever see Gwynne Dwyer's PBS series "War"? One episode covered basic training, portraying basic training at a U.S. army base, and Dwyer, a Canadian, said that it was exactly the same as the basic training he had experienced in the Canadian army. The reason that most countries draft at age 18, he said, is that young men at that age are both at the peak of their physical strength and extremely insecure and susceptible to peer pressure. So going into battle is not heroism if your main motivation is not to look like a wuss in front of your equally terrified comrades.

Heroism is the unarmed medic who ministers to the wounded in the battlefield. It's the soldier who disobeys an unlawful order. Heroism is the Bradley Mannings who say, "This makes me sick, and I have to try to stop it, no matter what the personal cost."

My father was a conscientious objector during World War II, but he didn't get off easy. He and others like him, mostly Quakers, Mennonites, and Jehovah's Witnesses, were subjected to medical experiments that could have killed them, including starvation, prolonged sleep deprivation, and being purposely infected with various diseases. To be known as a conscientious objector during and immediately after a popular war wasn't easy, either.