[toddst]

So what do you want from me? No- I have not served in the military. . . My Father did and hated it and said it was a waste of time and he was a volunteer.

Well, I don't know which war your father was referring to. However, if WW II was a "waste of time" what would have stopped Hitler from taking and holding all of europe? US participation saved millions of lives and preserved our freedom as well. Pretty conservative that, IMO.

[nonliberal]

Hitler was not a direct threat to the United States, and in retrospect, we should have let the Nazis KEEP France!

[Burkeman1]

He served during relative peace time. After college he joined the army reserves 1965 after a year of law school (he never finished law school). Viet Nam was just starting up then. He never thought he would be sent to Viet Nam since he was in the guard. But his unit was called up in 68' and he was sent to Colorado to await deployment for Nam. Johnson never did send them. It was somewhat of a political issue at the time if guard units should be used. My oldest brother was two years old at this time and I was on the way. But regardless- even if he went to Nam he was by that time an intel specialist (Sargent 2nd class I think) and would have sat in an air conditioned van looking at and analyzing aerial photos.

[MattinNJ]

Hate to dive in here, but you are both right. IMHO, WWS was a conservative movie that celebrated conservative values-love for country, fighting for freedom, bravery, etc...

Burkeman1 is right that we were bamboozled into WWI by Wilson. He was the first liberal president to inflict serious damage on this nation. Washington warned us not to get involved in the European wars. Left to their own devices, the Europeans eventually would have bled themselves out in WWI. Our boys did not have the proper equipment in most instances and were slaughtered. We did manage to save Paris (in retrospect maybe we shouldn't have).

In WWII, the same thing would have happened. The Nazis and the Commies would have continued to smash each other until there was nothing left-which is a good thing. IMHO, our involvement should have been left to providing air cover to England at most. Some would have a knee jerk reaction saying that we helped to end the holocaust. While a nice thought, I don't think thats the case. FDR couldn't have cared less-in fact he turned a boat load of escaping Jews back to Germany early on in the war. Second, Stalin wound up killing just as many Jews as Hitler if not more. He is not villified for it in the history books because liberals don't want to say anything bad about communism which is just as evil, if not more so, than fascism.