Why War Is Ignoble

Whenever young Americans depart for overseas battlefields, older men seem to envy them the adventure. On the eve of the Vietnam War, my college dean told me he was sorry he had not come under fire during his wartime service in the Pacific. He wanted to know how he might have responded to the test of combat. He assumed I would understand, and his regrets may have led me to later join the Air Force rather than seek a draft deferment.