[akv]

If these recruits are smart, and loyal and need discipline and fitness instilled in them, isn't that a better problem than the inverse?

Perhaps it's just part of human nature to think the younger generation is softer and less capable, yet to date the American soldier has responded every time the nation has needed. If you look at warfare and technology going back in time, I'm not sure what to think of relative toughness, it just seems a brutal business regardless.

For example, IMHO WW1 trench warfare was incredibly brutal, large scale battles, in the mud, in which technology was far ahead of tactics, no penicillin, etc., just a slaughter. The US Civil War was also brutal, lines of men and artillery blasting away at short distances in the open.

Yet I wonder what a soldier from a phalanx or a Roman legion would have thought of this relative to 20 years of hand to hand combat.

Did the WW2 vets on the Eastern Front or those who fought at Normandy, up Italy or across the Pacific have it easier than their fathers in the trenches of Belgium? I don't know how you answer that?

I recall reading accounts of Vietnam vets whose fathers told them this isn't a real war like ours was. I personally am in awe of the men who ran SOG missions up north, or fought at Khe Sanh etc. In recent times you have examples of the sacrifice of the two snipers in Somalia, or the courage of someone like Sergeant Bellavia in Fallujah. There are too many examples to cite from Vietnam and the GWOT.

It seems warfare has changed, bodycounts have gone down in wars since WW2, obviously due to scale, but also due to tactics and technology, but is this a reflection on the toughness of subsequent generations? IMHO the younger generation always has different, lingo, culture, and preferences, but when push comes to shove answers the bell for their war.