Apologies if my comments about a military flying experience caused you to construe that I was advocating military service. I was advocating flying in the military as a pathway if military service is compatible with the individual. Please don't join our volunteer services if you don't really want to be there. The guy or gal on your wing or in your foxhole deserves better. I left active service when my commitment became a burden to my family. Honestly, with that in mind, I didn't want to be there anymore. Of course, a lifetime of flying offers fantastic experience and challenges no matter what you fly or who pays you to do it--if you get paid at all to do it. I have a family friend whose career was all civilian and some forty years long with 36 years at American. He retired there at #2 about a decade ago (seriously #2). Very knowledgeable and highly successful.

Your point is valid: In the service, your individual politics don't get a say. If our country says there is a fight to be had, we go throw the punches (and take some punches). My past grants me the right to speak casually about combat. In action, though, you forget about politics. The experience is primordial. You fight aggressively, you worry about right now, and you look out for the guys/gals in that place with you. In short, you first survive, then gain an advantage, and finally capitalize on the enemy. (Ironically, more often than not, that advantage is the guy overhead with bombs and rockets...a pilot) It happens ultra-fast and what Bush and Obama think doesn't count during the experience. Sorry for the diatribe...its what really happens there.

Good luck to any who find my thoughts valuable to a flying career or life.