Do you think American soldiers are put on too high of a pedestal

[The Grand Nudger]

aka dilettantish, anti-intellectual, unearned entitlements.

[Lek]

As a vet myself, I can tell you that most people don't go into the military because they are patriotic or that they really want to go fight.  They may be patriotic, but that's usually not the main factor.  I went in because I wanted to get out of town and go some place else.  It was a way to get job training and experience while being paid at the same time.  Having said that, we were all willing to pay the price of going to war.  

I believe that anyone who has served the country in war deserves respect and follow-on support, but they're not idols or necessarily more patriotic or worthy of respect than others.  We're up and down in regards to respect of vets.  Following WWII everybody loved them and during the Vietnam era they were spat upon.  I think it's just a matter of giving vets whatever respect and care they deserve.

[abaris]

I believe that anyone who has served the country in war deserves respect and follow-on support, but they're not idols or necessarily more patriotic or worthy of respect than others.  We're up and down in regards to respect of vets.  Following WWII everybody loved them and during the Vietnam era they were spat upon.  I think it's just a matter of giving vets whatever respect and care they deserve.

The spat on part is an urban legend based on one or two isolated incidences.

The reason why they were respected after WWII was that it was a worthy cause, as opposed to Vietnam. But soldiers were at the forefront of the Vietnam opposition, as they were in the case of Iraq. They were always the ones telling the true tales the authorities didn't want the public to know.

As for me, I have sympathy for everyone being sent off to war. It's a situation no human being should experience. And that goes above and beyond respect.

[Thumpalumpacus]

There is certainly a streak of militarism in a wide swath of the American population, but it is not really based in military pedagogy, but rather, mindless patriotism.

Which kinda makes my point. The Prussian militarism had the same goals. Creating dutyful subjects by playing to their sense patriotism. Again, this is an outside observation, but it seems to me that the US are the only country being that much into their military. I'm well aware that there are ulterior motifs in doing so, but that's also why I called the pedestal they are put on lip service in my first post. It's not the actual service man they should care about but the general idea of the military might.

Sure, I don't have any argument with your basic point, just with the idea that the public education system plays a significant role in it.

To be fair, I don't know much about the Prussian education system.

[Anomalocaris]

It has been said Prussia was not a state with an army but an army with a state.   The US is certainly not the latter, and in any case the US far too riven with internal fault lines that are proving to be deeper than can be pasted over even by external security concerns for it to be plausible to become an army with a state.   Evidence of this is readily observed in republican willingness to accept Moscow interference in the very way government form in this country, to say nothing of embracing the most unqualified administration conceivable, all to retain the prospect of gaining Supreme Court seats for ideological reasons. National sovereignty has finished into a silly slogan, that one of the major parties, the one that sells itself as the national security party, is willing to fundamentally betray for domestic political advantage. This is not the soil in which any really dynamic militaristic state can grow. At most it will become a South American style corrupt military dictatorship that for all their showy militarism can't win wars.

What this country has become for now is a failing state in which the army has become something of the sand with which dispossessed population with little prospect of economic or social fulfillment use to bury their heads in order to confront the reality of the failing state.

[Minimalist]

Allow, for a moment, that prussian militarism was also an issue of jingoism etc

Not to mention that Prussia was a relatively small country with Russia on one side, France on the other, Austria to the south and the Baltic to the north.  They didn't have a lot of alternatives.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

All people are pretty much identical in every country around the world. Put them in a spiffy military or cop uniform and they will gladly kill and oppress whoever their bosses tell them to kill and oppress. There's nothing unique or special about American soldiers. They are the same as everyone else. But we do have better propaganda than other countries so they might think that they are more special, but they really aren't. When they get used up the bosses treat them like dirt and get others to willingly take their place.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The 1 combat soldier for every 10 servicemen ratio can't be typical for all armies in WWII.  This is because the total combat fatality across all major combatant armies approached 10% of all who served in militaries during WWII.

It was a rotation system. At any time only 10 percent of soldiers were at the frontline. It wasn't the same 10 percent at any time, and I guess it must have been the same with the US.

Sorry, but there were 9 non-combatant jobs for every combatant job.

[chimp3]

A friend of my nephew joined the military a few years ago. Right before he went in he was at our house declaring "I am going to kill some Ay-rabs!". I did not put him on a pedestal.

[abaris]

"I am going to kill some Ay-rabs!". I did not put him on a pedestal.

And what did he say when he came back? Lesson learned that it's not Counter Strike?