Just to warn you, I'm a total pacifist. I'd probably abandon my friends before I shot and killed someone I didn't know. In my country that is an offense punishable by death I believe, which strikes me as odd that avoiding murder should condemn you to a traitorous death. Nevertheless I imagine my friends might be pretty upset when they drag me to the battlefield, shove a gun in my hands and point at the enemy only to have me drop the gun, flee far, far in the other direction, and find someplace to hide. They'd feel betrayed as they trusted me to support them in murdering the people who are supporting their own friends (and leaders) by murdering my friends.
So just to warn you, that's what you can expect from me. If you ignore this warning, draft me into battle anyway in these egalitarian times, despite my bum ankle, then you get exactly what you deserve. Please don't kill me though. I'd really hate to get shot in the back by my own friends who were upset at me fleeing the battlefield.
I'm happy to let y'all kill yourselves and such: listen to your leader's orders, put yourself in danger and shoot strangers you have never even met before, who themselves have no reason to kill you other than the same as your own, possibly some disagreeing ideals you could argue about over coffee in a different setting. There is some merit even to being the world's police, that is doing the same thing as above but deciding to try to kill as few of the other side as possible. I'll happily help behind the scenes, although my ideals might end up with me making it harder for you to go to war, i.e. helping destroy your war loving leader and his reputation in order to bring you home. It's just not in my nature to fight though, especially on the front lines.
One more thing I'd like to add. There is a status known as Conscientious Objector, one who objects to a war on matters of their conscience. This is a lie though, because they say you must provide evidence of opposing all war; if you oppose this one just in order to avoid the draft then you are labeled a lazy no-good grunt and sent to battle anyway. In other words, you are not allowed to object to the current war, however unjust and pointless it clearly is. In addition, the criteria for CO status is vague and subjective, so you are literally on the mercy of your recruitment officer, who is selected for his pro-war tendancies, and gets paid more if he drafts you and forces you into war. Many Conscientious OBjectors in Vietnam were not allowed the status they deserved, just because their recruitment officer felt like it, or because our leaders fooled you into thinking that anyone who opposes a draft but has supported war in the past is being lazy, not contextual.
I've never supported war myself; it just leads to more war. Very nasty stuff. Nobody wins a war. But then... faced with such an officer, all the past logs of my disinterest toward armed conflict, weaponry and "defending" my country might fall on deaf ears. I could be just lazy after all, trying to cop out of a duty that I never agreed to in the first place.
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