They are part of the sell on certain asserted premises: that the nation as such is inherently a Grat Good to be Protected At All COst, and that it was under Extreme Threat; and therefore, that those dying in battle Stood for Virtue Against the Ultimate Odds, and Paid the Ultimate Price to defend our Great Virtues.

Now, to a certain extent, there is a grain of truth in these assertions, but the sad fact is that the right-wing, the deeply sentimental, and those who want to camouflage their own failures to make similar high-risk contirbutions to the group good, have exagerrated these slogans and laid about with them until they are plumb worn out at the elbows. So they seem, perhaps, less inspiring than at one time they may have seemed.

But I will say this: standing up to a lethal threat in battle takes a huge amount of courage, and a great ability to confront. If you actually do it, especially becaise of a philosophical sense of Virtue, you are being heroic, sure enough. I have never been shot at and do not intend to begin now, myself; if it ever came down to it, I would want to be able to face it as intelligently and courageously as some of these veterans (especially the ones who survive).


A