[x]

I don't think you quite get it.

Whatever Billy Jack did or didn't say, there's a long tradition of war heroes who don't enjoy war.

You can see this in Sargent York and other citizen soldiers.

York had been a pacifist before he became a soldier and won the Medal of Honor.

I don't think Alvin York would have said that he was better than his fellow soldiers or that they were evil, but he'd stand by what he believed.

And no, I'm not trying to say that the rest of the army did relish killing, though there are some people in every army and country who do.

One reason why so many war heroes don't like to talk about the war (apart from not wanting to brag) is that they didn't enjoy what they had to do and don't want to be reminded of it.

You're trying to ideologize something that really doesn't need ideologizing -- introducing us/them, right/left distinctions where they aren't wanted or needed.

[Richard Poe]

x writes: "One reason why so many war heroes don't like to talk about the war (apart from not wanting to brag) is that they didn't enjoy what they had to do and don't want to be reminded of it."

I certainly agree with you regarding Sergeant York.

However, Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque and Norman Mailer were cut from entirely different cloth. All three of these men grew wealthy and famous by writing novels based upon exaggerated accounts of their military service, presented in a fashionably anti-war package.

They should not be mentioned in the same breath as Sergeant York.