Susan, Thank you for the thoughtful consideration.
I am in the Coast Guard. Granted we don't get as much flak as the other services, but as far as training philosophies, they are all pretty much the same.
Boot camp is a training proccess in which everyone starts from ground zero and works their way up. It is the truly equalizing factor of the military. We are all "broken down" to be "built up".
The goal is to take everyone in a company of 40-150 kids and turn them into responsible and mentally equipped adults. It is a difficult mental atmosphere where you are basically told that you amount to nothing until you graduate.
You are punished for things beyond your control, and taught to depend greatly on those in your company. You are taught to be loyal to your shipmates and to revere authority. They can take a person who has never had structure of any kind in their life and teach them to march, eat, sleep, excercise, problem solve and work as a cohesive unit.
You are taught basic skills that you will use in the fleet and for the rest of your life. You are taught how to manage your time (sometimes to the second) to pay attention to detail (every detail
), and what you can accomplish both as a member of a team and as an individual. Everybody who goes to boot camp learns a lot about themselves, i.e. how to deal with stress, uncomfortable situations, and the importance of standing up for what's right.
In boot camp every aspect of your life is monitored, and you are held accountable for every action. You learn about the fundamental freedoms that you are swearing to protect and how to adopt the core values of our service Coast guard: Honor, Respect, Devotion to duty).
You are taught skills like seamanship and survival. You are taught how to use a gun effectively, and how to maintain composure and military bearing in stressful situations.
finally you are built up and taught about what an honor it is to serve the finest Nation the world has ever seen and to be part of your service (in my case, the finest sea going service in the world).
You are never taught that life is cheap, or taught to be desensatized to killing, you are just given the ability to cope with the stressful horror that war is.
you can ask anyone why they want to join the mlitary, and not 1 person will tell you because they want to kill people. When we get out of boot camp we are more overtaken with the sense of duty to die for our country, not to kill all who oppose it. We are sworn to protect and uphold the constitution.
First of all, Iraq was NOT ever positively connected to 9-11. Osama bin Laden did that, and since we couldn't find him, we decided to go ahead with an already-written (before September 11th) plan to invade Iraq on the pretext of making the world a safer place. 
