Why military participants who die in war are called heroes

[TreasonousBastard]

9. It goes back to the ancient Greeks, and probably long before them...

War is a terrible thing, and we have to be taught to accept it. There are "natural born killers" and warriors, but most of us would not willingly engage in something so horrible without a damn good excuse. Or a lifetime of propaganda telling us it's not so bad after all.

Anyone who has been through military training knows how reasonably decent kids are turned into trained killers without knowing at first what's going on. A chestful of medals, unit cohesion, blind obediance... All of this is instilled in the recruit and the first real action will be a shock, but, hopefully, not blind panic and there will be few second thoughts about the killing.

The public is trained the same way, with talk of heroes, patriotism, loyalty and all the other pomp, pap, and pageantry that goes along with it.

Marine General Smedley Butler, winner of two Medals of honor, saw through it and in the end preached against war, largely laughed at and pitied for being an old fool, and Mark Twain before him wrote "The War Prayer" which I think should be required reading every Memorial Day. Before Twain was General Sherman, who spit on the thought of the honor and glory of war. To Sherman it was an occasionally necessary evil that should be hated not celebrated.

But these are small voices compared to the immense propaganda machine convincing us how war is somehow really a good thing and we should willingly accept it as one price of our way of life.

And, of course, there's big money in war.