Why do we fight?

I just watched an old episode of NCIS. There was a retired WWII veteran who had received the medal of honor. At the end he toasted with a Japanese man who had fought in the War. It really made me think.

Why is there always fighting in the world? There is talk that the war in the Middle East could become World War III. There has always been fighting in the world. It's hard to imagine if there will ever be a time when there's no fighting on Earth. (I was going to say 'in the world', but I watch a lot of Sci-Fi, and when there's peace on Earth there'll likely be a war in the skies.)

I was in the reserves for two years as a radio operator, so even if I was in a war I wouldn't likely have seen any combat. I did go on an exercise for a weekend in Fort Drum, New York, though and I was with the infantry, so I had a taste of what it might have been like. Even though I never fired my rifle as the 'enemy' never came near my position, I still had to clean it after as I was sitting in a muddy trench (that I dug) the whole time. When we marched in we had to go through a shallow river and it rained the whole weekend, so I never dried out the whole time.

It really did feel like hell and I only did that for the one weekend and it's not something I want to experience too often, if again. Most of the time a radio operator sits in the back of a cosy radio truck. I do think that my training was a good experience though and it is one of the things that I'm proud of in my life.

However, I think about the Canadian and American troops who are overseas now and the fire fights you hear that they've been in and the ones who are killed. I can't imagine what that would be like. I'm sure that really changes someone being around that and seeing friends get shot and I doubt it's a change for the better. I'm not sure it's something I would be able to handle or even want to.

I do think guns are cool, but that's the macho man in me. The C7 rifle (Canadian version of the M16) I used in the reserves was cool. I'm a pretty good shot on the range and even was able to use it on fully automatic once. It goes through a 30 round mag in about 3 seconds. The gun advocates like to use the saying, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." I think it's a true statement, but guns really make it easy and a lot less close and impersonal, so I think a corallary is that "people use guns to kill people." And really is there another purpose for guns other than killing?

Anyway, just my ramblings for today and some things to think about.