the overwhelming majority of soldiers are good people with good intentions, i would wager. and for those that do a better job of representing us abroad than hammer, i salute them. it sucks to be away from home that long, much less in a foreign land, much less with your life at risk constantly. i could not even pretend to imagine what that is like.
but keep in mind there is no draft, and if you volunteer and sign up, the rest of us here at home expect that you will be a good ambassador to the rest of the world. this is not optional.
that said, war can cause good people to do some things that are way out of character, and i am not one to judge having never been there. i would prefer to see a world where the evil and larceny in men is not extracted in such a way, as other people have said, like pawns in a game of chess played by powerful interests, but such is unrealistic. the centuries of peace that endured during the roman empire was the exception, not the rule.
end point: to the troops, i salute thee for taking a job i would never take, but please behave yourselves better than hammer has behaved in this thread.