Join the Army, Risk Your Life : U.S. forces: Three squares, an education and a pension don’t come without a price.

From the beginning of time, fighting men all over the world have been sent by their chiefs, their warlords, their kings or queens, their fascist or communist leaders, their presidents or prime ministers to fight wars for reasons never discussed with those doing the fighting. These soldiers and sailors were revered by their fellow countrymen, and the fact that they might lose their lives for their country was a given.

Now American servicemen and women are in Bosnia for reasons about which many Americans feel great ambivalence. And the public mood is different. The media have taken over. A tearful young woman all done up in camouflage gear tells television viewers that she had promised her parents she would be home for Christmas, but, sadly, now she has to go far away. A young soldier is asked if he is afraid to die. He says he has never given it any thought and appears puzzled by the question. Did both of these soldiers plan on a quiet barracks life, three meals a day, a clean bed to sleep in, a few good comrades, a free education and then early retirement on full pension? Did their parents feel that they might be safer in the armed services than on the “mean streets”? Did young parents who joined the services never give any thought to the day that they would be ordered by their government to go into combat and leave their children behind?

And now, the first combat death in Bosnia. For the men and women who have chosen the armed forces as their career, the message is this: If you are in the armed services, you might be sent into combat, and if you are sent into combat, you might be killed. If that possible outcome unnerves you, run, do not walk past your local recruiting station!

And stop whining. War is hell, fought for whatever reason and whether lost or won. Soldiers die, children die, civilians die--and so does reason.