Quote Originally Posted by Sinan
You guys don't even know why some people join the military. You think they wanna be some hero and have high moral values and all that. Get real. They join and when war starts it's all about killing. A kill is a kill. Period. What matters most in the military ? Killing the enemy is what matters. You think people don't cheer when the kill an enemy ? Of course they do. They dying to kill stuff.
Your cyncism has some truth in it, but not much. People join the military for many reasons, and few join to kill. There used to be a time when this tendency would be identified in training and efforts made to control it. One requires personnel to follow orders, not to kill. Those orders may indeed require killing, but in many cases they do not - or require moderation in the application of lethal force (ie just the target guys, not everything larger than a gopher).

What matters most in the military is achieving the mission, and to the ordinary soldier, coming home alive with his mates.

People still joined the services when there was no war. Why?

Don't make the mistake of thinking war is like a video game, and whilst you might see veterans celebrating death on occasion, you should not. You should also be aware that many more veterans do not celebrate in such a way - but then they don't have videos to share, do they?

When we managed to kill an Irish terrorist, emotions could range from glee to profound sadness. I wonder if you can imagine why the spectrum?