by Ezra
I'm going to have to disagree with Amanda's post that Shakes references below. Amanda says:
War is not possible unless you have internal class warfare. War is not possible unless the rich and powerful feel free to demand the lives of the common people be sacrificed with the same ease you lose a pawn in a game of chess.
It wasn't always this way. JFK volunteered for service in World War II, was rejected due to his bad back, spent months strengthening it, and successfully reenlisted. His two brothers also served and Joe Kennedy, the oldest, was killed. George W. Bush's father fought to get his fighter's wings at age 18, succeeded, and became the youngest fighter pilot in the Navy. His son, of course, wasn't even the youngest fight pilot in the Texas/Alabama Air National Guard. Hell, he didn't even have the best attendance record in the Guard.
There was a time when the children of the rich were expected to do more than others. Noblesse oblige, we called it. And it meant that sons of Senators, of land owners, of manufacturers and business titans served in the same units and died in the same wars as the sons of those who worked for their fathers. The rich paid the same as the poor, and no one could sit back, stroking their chin, offering detached pronouncements on the desirability of war.
