Tell Young People that War Sucks

The idea that we still, still today, impress on young men and women that going to war is somehow a worthwhile, necessary, gratifying, and heroic thing to do is quintessentially depressing and demoralizing. Worthwhile, necessary, gratifying, and heroic things happen in war despite of war. They are the tiny minority of happenings in war. The rest are inhuman, unloving, hateful, tortuous, mentally, spiritually, and physically demeaning things, and they happen on a grand scale.

Good young people deserve to be told that.