All correct, Jack, and I am not arguing the point with you. If I were conducting warfare in a modern war, I would do exactly as the Germans, the Japanese, the British, the Americans, and all the rest of them did...I would use the most effective weapons possible at the time, and I would attempt to minimize my own losses and maximize those of the enemy by every means possible.

I simply made a philosophical comment about chivalry, that's all. I like it as a concept. I prefer societies, few though they have been, which embrace the concept of chivalry seriously, and make an effort to live up to it. The notion appeals to me.

In the west of the 1800s, for example, it was thought to be cowardly cold-blooded murder to shoot a man in the back...any man...and people were despised for doing it, even if they did it on behalf of the law. Robert Ford, the killer of Jesse James, was despised for it, even though Jesse James was a notorious outlaw. Now if Robert Ford had shot Jesse face to face, with Jesse armed and fighting back...then people would have admired him greatly for it. People in the west still had some sense of honor about stuff like that.

I can relate to that. Just winning is not as good as winning with courage and honor. People in the 1800s knew that, and that's why they did not like Robert Ford one bit for shooting Jesse in the back of the head while he was unarmed and dusting off a picture.

You follow? I'm not talking about how to win a war here nor am I attacking the Indiana Jones film, which was great. I'm talking about matters of personal honor in one-to-one combat, and I am simply expressing some philosophical ideas about it. I'm saying that we live in a very cynical age, and we do. People's lack of idealism now is just tragic. People act like they don't believe in anything anymore, and I'm thinking maybe they don't.

To imagine that I am suggesting, however, that we use the old chivalrous notions to fight a modern war campaign is to misconstrue what I am talking about. Given the nature of our weapons now, it's impossible to be chivalrous in the larger scale of modern war...except when it comes to how you treat a defeated enemy after the battle...and that's still quite important.