Of course conscripts and their families views are colored in a way that reflects their personal experience. What enlisted men and their families' views aren't colored by theirs also? Many conscripts feel like a victims for being conscripted, just like idealistic enlisted men hope to feel like heros for enlisting. Kurt Vonnegut had dreams of fighting the good fight, and being a good soldier for the cause of freedom too. But he, like so many vets, came away from the war with radically different views of war, and what it accomplishes.

Are they any less heroic for saying so?

My father never forbade us joining in on military celebrations and memorials, and never made any attempt to force his opinions and beliefs about military service on us kids. Of course, he didn't have to, because he only had daughters. Yet, he just never joined in with the jingoist breastbeaters howling about the rotten kids questioning US involvement in Vietnam, never preached to young people during the war about whether they should serve or not. He was never an anti-war protestor. He was simply a decent man who hated war, and refused to join in anything that he felt glorified it, especially WWII, which he claimed was the most glorified war in US history.

That was one thing he was quite clear about--his belief that the reason why WWII was the most glorified of all US wars was because it was through that war that the US became the world's most powerful military superpower. He thought the Korean and Vietnam Wars were the most reviled of US wars, because they brought us face to face with ourselves as aggressors, and with all the arrogance of our military might being abused in the name of freedom, God, country, and killing communists.

You've no right to demonize me because my way is different from yours. I do what I do on Memorial Day not to dishonor your war dead, but to honor mine. My father didn't like Memorial Day, and nor does my mother. Neither ever made a big deal out of not celebrating it, and normally, nor do I.

I guess this year is the first time I've felt like I'm being attacked for not participating in the war machine's Memorial Day festivities, so maybe 9/11 has changed people more than I've been aware of. Now that I think of it, I doubt my original post to this thread, had it been in the same thread last year, would have evoked the same responses as we've seen here today.