Just to touch on this one.
Ruby and I are in Australia. You cannot just volunteer to join up. Its a really hard career to get into here. Its extremely well paid with great tax free pensions that are paid no matter what you may earn in your civilian life "if" you decide to leave. We have a smallish standing army that is expensive to maintain so they dont hire stupid.
We also dont do all the "thank you for your service" crap that the yanks do. They choose to apply for the job. If they are one of the few that pass they are on there way to lotsa $ for minimal risk. Most of the actual fighting is done by the SAS and other elite units not the general soldier.
I do agree with you on the oil. Lets face it this war on terror thats destroying cities, countries and creating terrorists is about oil.
Still amazes me that nearly all the pilots on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia yet you lot invaded Afghanistan....and flew all the Bin Lardin royal family out of America before the FBI etc could interview them during the shut down of the whole air space - Good old Bush lookin after his friends and business partners.