Is it your goal to see how many responses you can get from your ignorant ramblings? I'd say you did pretty good on this one.

With all those vets in your family I find it hard to believe you didn't learn anything from them. Surely they couldn't have come home bragging about the glorious experiences of battle.

For the record, most military DO NOT join simply to protect your right to sit behind your computer and rally to send them to war. Young kids join to make money for college; married kids join to provide for their family; mid-20 year olds join to re-pay college debts or because of the depressed job market; etc. I knew one girl that joined simply to go to Germany so she could buy a BMW cheap and have Uncle Sam ship it back free. I also knew one kid that joined simply because that girl joined (she was a little cutie).

However, I can probably count on one hand the number of kids that joined for purely patriotic reasons. There just aren't a whole lot of people out there begging to be bullet stoppers these days.