RE THE MILITARY

Apparently reliable lists currently posted on the Internet indicate that there are at least seventy six million military, reserve, and paramilitary personnel in existence worldwide.  Said lists also express the fact that the United States presently maintains close to a million and a half of these military on active duty; plus approximately the same number of National Guard and Reserve members as well.  A large portion of these U.S. military service members are stationed in about 150 countries worldwide.

This state of affairs, whereby there exist millions of human beings having a primary function of killing one another--and at times hapless civilians as well--is not a novel phenomenon.  Starting as marauding raiding parties in prehistoric times, humans have organized themselves, or permitted themselves to be organized, over the years, into regimented groups, for the purpose of attacking other human beings, and/or defending their people and places against attack by others having similar organization and purpose.

Throughout history, the military has frequently played a major role in determining the course of events that have shaped mankind's destiny.  Ancient armies were used to create and preserve empires, whose names today are household terms.  They have comprised the compulsion behind the aggregations of people and places that came under the rule or domination of foreigners during times of imperialism.  To this day, military force, or the threat thereof, is used as the primary means of imposing physical rule and/or political control upon people or nations who are sought to be dominated.

Armed forces--and, particularly, individuals having control over, or the backing of, the military--have constituted the vehicles throughout history whereby governments have been formed, maintained, overthrown, and replaced.  During the military frenzy that comprised a major component of Naziism in Germany, the women of the country were commanded to bear lots of children, so as to provide many "soldiers of the future" for the "Fuhrer" and his agenda.

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