The Germans and Italians and Japanese who served in WWII thought it was a just war too...from the complete opposite perspective. Everyone is told by his government that he is fighting to protect his country, his way of life, his family, his neighbours, and everything that is good and decent. And you know what? Most of them believe it without question. They swallow the line their government dishes out...even when they are sent away off to some foreign land and are blowing up someone else's home!

It is only after a war is irrevocably lost (or well on the way to being lost) that some of those men and women in uniform start questioning the initial assumptions under which they served. But by that time...if they are still in combat...well, then they will still fight fiercely to defend their own lives and the lives of the others in their unit, others whom they have come to know, and love, and depend upon. There is nothing fiercer than the determination of soldiers fighting on behalf of their comrades in the same unit. They will definitely die for each other under those circumstances.

This is true of ALL armies, not just our own armies.

A terrific war movie that beautifully illustrates this love of soldiers for their fellow soldiers is "Black Hawk Down"...although it focuses, really, only on the Americans in the battle, not on the Somalis. Still, it's a superb movie about men in combat, and how they will give their lives willingly for their friends.

If you want to rise above mere nationalism and tribalism, however, then you must be capable of understanding that the soldier in the opposing army is just as motivated by love for those he has served beside as the soldier in your own army is, and he TOO is dying on behalf of those he loves.

If you can't see that, and if you can't honor it, then you will never understand the depth of the entire overwhelming tragedy that is war...and you will go on being easy prey for a government that wishes to send your kids out to fight yet another war on somebody else's land.