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Shane Gericke's avatar

Kipling was a genius in many ways. This and his ode to dying on Afghanistan plains are masterpieces of how societies treat their war fighters.

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Terry Hilldale's avatar

On the other hand, soldiers have a well-earned reputation for causing trouble, even in peacetime deployments like right now in Okinawa. As long as they stay in the officers' club or the enlisted club, fine. But then when they go out "into the economy," they suddenly forget the manners their mothers taught them, even while doing mundane things like riding the bus.

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R Mercer's avatar

That is largely because of a couple of factors:

1) The general youth of military personnel these days (and corresponding lack of maturity);

2) As has tended to be the case through most of history, many of these enlisted come from the lower strata of society;

3) It is a high stress job and it tends to lead to aberrant behavior (by civilian standards)--because, in the end, military culture is significantly different from civilian culture and the value systems and ethics are quite different. Being in the military is one of the more extreme versions of in and out group behavior.

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