@ Mr. Dibble,
Suicide bombers, if that counts as “war”.
I’m ignorant of this but don’t (some) Sikhs carry ceremonial weapons around to defend their faith at any time? If so, are there rewards for doing so?
Nope. “In Battle”, it said.
I suspect that terrorists would characterize suicide bombing as “battle” in a war against the infidels (or against a rival sect) , but that’s just a guess. Either way, the bomber carries out his assignment with the promise of a future reward in the afterlife.
“There’s no such thing as a truly anti-war film. By depicting the adventure and thrill of combat, war movies can’t help but glorify their subject, fueling fantasies of spectacular, heroic violence. It’s a case where the sensational beauty of cinema works against our humanist impulses rather than for them.”
–Francois Truffaut
“Did it ever occur to you that dying could be exciting?”
– Patton. (As told in Patton’s Principles by Porter B. Williamson) Amazon link.
I recently read American Sniper, the autobiography of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle. He comes across as something of a psychopath. In the book he freely admits that he likes to fight, and he thinks all the deaths he caused were justified and his enemies were evil. In one part he tells about a group of insurgents that was crossing a river using beachballs as flotation devices. Instead of shooting the insurgents in the head, he shot the beachballs because he found it amusing to watch them flail around and drown. He also talks about getting into barfights, and SEALS fighting and choking each other out for fun.
This Marine colonel thinks being in combat is cool: Green Monster - “What does a firefight feel like”
There are a number of war videos online where soldiers are laughing and cheering as they kill the enemy. I mainly see this when a bomb or missile strikes. Not as much in infantry videos where people are shooting rifles. Then it’s mostly just loud screaming, presumably in order to be heard over the gunfire.
If there weren’t a lot of people who liked war, we wouldn’t keep having them.
Another data point is how very many video games are based on war. War with assault rifles, war with icons of of platoons and companies on a map, war with lances on flying ostriches. Conflict is engaging.