"I would definitely agree that there are some major differences between, "the average 18 year old who went to Vietnam, differs quite remarkably from the average 18 year old, who enlists, these days." I therefore found it surprising that you then completely failed to actually detail what those differences were."

Well I gave one... "The average 18 year old now, however, has grown up with a healthy suspicion of all things Middle-Eastern"
And I qualified that by stating "There are kids nowadays...", not 'kids nowadays'. The fact remains that the average 'American' 18 year-old has grown up through the 1990's in Saddam Hussein's shadow. Granted there are some kids that this will not matter to; pacifists do not have a habit of joining the army. It is the mindset of the ones who do join armies that I'm focusing my attention on. And (by and large), there are not too many that I have seen interviewed from the front-line that have any problem with US foreign policy, nor the way it is being carried out. All I keep seeing are willing participants.

If this state of affairs provides healthy recruiting grounds for 'Al Qaedists' (as the phrase has been coined), it also offers the same pastures to our side.

It is not the Cold War, anymore. We know it as a different type of enemy. The whole definition of war changed on 9/11, and I think most people accept that. The nuclear deterrent kept paranoia at a healthy level in the Communist era. Nobody really thought there would be a pre-emptive strike from the USSR (occasional 'scares' notwithstanding). All hell would have broken loose, otherwise. Today the threat is not as clear, but we have no doubt that the enemy will use whatever it is they have to hand to carry through that threat, and that brings on a different sense of paranoia than was there during the Vietnam era.

I do not take all your points about generalising, though. I have enough "There are those...", ...."There are more of these kind of people....", and the like, scattered through my post to indicate that I was focusing my attention on a few. But again, it is very hard to produce evidence of the preponderance of such mindsets; one can take a look at human nature, these days, and juxtapose it into an situation where discipline is no longer a second nature... where it wasn't even a first, before their spirit got dented in boot camp, and in that I fully understand, why you would think that to be an uncharacteristic post, Teribus,

There is a general drift, however, to tolerance of greater and greater limits of 'atrocity'; that is really my point. This story is only unfolding, so most of my contentions up there, are just me observing certain trends in society, comparing it to my own professional experience, which actively ceased over 20 years ago, and commenting on what I see as a number of troubling precedents, both from the battlefield..., and from the Office.

I will, of course, reserve my judgement until I hear more of the facts of these cases, but there is fire. We don't know how much of it there is, though. The smoke may eventually indicate the extent of it.

Jim