“I’ll support the troops, 72 percent of which are in favor of immediate withdrawal, by helping bring them home.”

A sergeant called me and asked if I have ever considered joining the National Guard. As we were talking I asked what he thought the Iraqi body count might be. He said he didn’t know and that “the military doesn’t concern itself with numbers,” but pushes on until their goals are fulfilled.

I agreed the military certainly doesn’t care about the numbers, observing troops are given orders to shoot at enemy targets even if there are as many as 30 civilians between them and the purported enemy. What the sergeant didn’t understand is that the numbers are people.

I also mentioned that 28 percent of women are sexually assaulted in the military. He said he knew many women in the service, none of which, to the best of his knowledge, were ever raped. If I had thought faster I would have explained that rape is something so personal and horrific that victims will hide the fact and often never tell anyone.

When you think about it, what else can you expect from men desensitized through basic training to the point that they repress their most human feelings until they are virtually not themselves anymore? Soldiers, especially in times of war, live such an unnatural lifestyle that it’s amazing they don’t all psychologically collapse.

According to CNN, “Nearly half of all National Guard troops, close to 40 percent of active duty soldiers, and almost a third of Marines report psychological problems.”

The sergeant either denied or couldn’t answer to my accusations that many soldiers have their tours of duty unwillingly extended and that one third of the homeless are veterans.

I have no doubts that this sergeant earnestly believes he is serving his country. But as socialist Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”

When it became clear that I was entirely opposed to the war and military, he tried wrapping up the conversation by reminding me to support the troops, especially those I know personally.

I’ll support the troops, 72 percent of which are in favor of immediate withdrawal, by helping bring them home. I told him my friends only joined out of financial necessity, and that it is terrible that the poor have to fight this and every other war.

He replied that the military provides jobs, keeps people off the streets and instills them with discipline.

Had I thought faster, I’d have argued that there are better ways to “serve,” such as with the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, which don’t require taking lives. It is twisted logic indeed to suggest the military is the best institution for building moral character by discipline.

Rather, men and women are turned into cogs in the war machine; the most “disciplined” are the ones who kill with the least conscience, have most of their individuality erased and either don’t mind or don’t know they are being lied to by their commander in chief.

In a socialist society, wherein the capitalist permanent arms economy has been overcome, everyone is guaranteed the right to work and to rest, and so there’s no occasion to be coerced into the military.

College is free in post-capitalist societies, depriving the military of its best recruiting technique, higher education assistance being the lead reason why one in three recruits join. Only 15 percent of soldiers using the GI Bill actually earn a four- year degree.

The tired, worn-out argument that workers will become lazy under socialism is just an apology for the war machine and idle capitalist class, both of which are maintained by the labor of the working class.

Workers are better able to work when they aren’t mourning the death of a relative or friend who died in the war, when they aren’t psychologically scarred from fighting imperialist wars, when the workday is reduced once society is rid of the parasitic capitalist class and when workers themselves are the owners of the workplace and democratically pick those who are to assume managerial positions.

Of course, workers will also have the right to be “lazy” during the part of the day that was previously devoted to reproducing and expanding the war machine.

When I personally hand a copy of this editorial to that sergeant, I’ll tell him, “Call me back when you have a war of the poor and working class against the rich, and I’ll be your first recruit.”

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