When we think of war, the tendency is to picture young soldiers only in their military roles. To a large extent this dehumanizes the soldiers and makes it easier for society to commit them to combat.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think it's very uncomfortable for people to talk to children about war, and so they don't because it's easier not to. But then you have young people at eighteen who are enlisting in the army, and they really don't have the slightest idea what they're getting into.
A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers.
So the whole of war, when you look at it is probably run by professional soldiers, and the rest of them are just recruits, or people who are just forced to join the army.
People try to glorify war, particularly those who aren't actually fighting in them. People tend to make heroes of those who are fighting in them.
War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.
If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
We often fight wars with our young.
Do you know what a soldier is, young man? He's the chap who makes it possible for civilised folk to despise war.
A lot of child soldiers lose their minds.
Our young people have come to look upon war as a kind of beneficent deity, which not only adds to the national honor but uplifts a nation and develops patriotism and courage.