Metrosexuals - Or what are the benefits of war?

I gather from Milblogs, from military memoirs, from psychological studies, etc., that many men do not find military service entirely distasteful, even during war time.

I've done my own personal study of human psychology since 9/11.

My conclusions are simple. People need a purpose. Women can find that purpose in a family, in children, in pursuit of ambition and careers. Men are wired slightly differently.

From what I've seen, there is a biological and social imperative that drives us into seeking a purpose.

Discipline, purpose, faith, a goal, a social circle, these things are powerful motivators of human behavior and human happiness. Aristotle in his Nicomachean ethics first talked about ethics and virtues, and why virtues are habits derived from actions that then lead to a formation of a personality.

Good virtues are habits that make you happy, and preferably makes other people happy. Virtues are a strength, it is never a weakness, because virtues are about the character. Honesty, loyalty, honor, duty. These virtues, if you have them, will make you happy. If we live in a society that does not value loyalty, honor, or duty, then we are adrift, we have no purpose and no goal. For ambitious people, CEOs, Type A Personality folks like in Spec Ops, that is the very definition of torture. To be without a purpose, to be helpless in the face of world events, to have no one need or care for you, such things breed a power vacuum. A bad thing.

Females in Western civilization, Europe, are converting to Islam. Because Islam offers faith, belief, discipline, demands, and a purpose.

War is interesting because war is the ultimate distillation of natural competition between people and cultures. It is the very definition of "Purpose". For Type A personalities, those who love to win and who have strong drives that never quit, then war is the ultimate challenge. Because for those people to be happy, they have to improve themselves, and you cannot improve yourself if you do not challenge something hard.

If you don't have enough men who are willing to fullfill their biological imperative to protect their family, to excel, to challenge and to win, then you're going to have a problem. And Europe is seeing the results of that problem.

America is still going good. Our military is strong, all volunteers, means no whiners and no metrosexuals. You don't want to be there, you wanna shop with your girlfriend 24/7, we got Hollywood for you. America has a place for everyone. If you're a woman, and you want to kick ass with the men, then we got a place for you to, as an Apache Attk Heli pilot.

Whether that balance is sustainable in the longterm, is somethng I'd be interested in finding out.

Another way of looking at it is decadence as a waste product of civilization. The more civilized you become, the weaker in virtues you are, the virtues that upheld and created your civilization in the first place.

Any parent with spoiled children understands decadence.

Humans need challenges, they need purpose, trials and tribulations, rewards and punishments. Without that, what is the purpose of life? Watch the Oscars and complain about the other political party?

War is the test of a nation, whether that nation is strong enough to withstand the test of time. It is a test, of whether you have what it takes to exist in this world of ours. And like all tests, failure is a bitter pill swallow, while acing the test is a joy indescribable.

The higher the risks, the greater the reward and the greater the joy.

Britain tried to emulate this discipline, this teamwork, this Band of Brothers bond after the war. They thought that the government could unite the people in peace as well as war.

They were wrong. You cannot emulate challenges without a real challenge, and peace is not a challenge.

As I've heard of the Marine philosophy, Marines are not war mongers, war is simply the only means by which you can tell whether you are a real Marine or not. The belief in a test, of you, your friends, and your character. The belief that self-esteem and self-worth is EARNED, not given. The belief that the worthwhile things in life are hard to get, not easy.

For someone who has known the heights of joy and happiness, it must be a bitter pill to swallow a civilian life afterwards. Some people will always regret the time in their life, when they were at their best and faced with a problem that they were meant to solve.