Firemen Don't Talk About Whether A Burning

Society Can Give Its Young Men Almost Any Job And They'll Figure How To Do It. They'll Suffer For It And Die For It And Watch Their Friends Die For It, But In The End, It Will Get Done. That Only Means That Society Should Be Careful About What It Asks For. ... Soldiers Themselves Are Reluctant To Evaluate The Costs Of War, But Someone Must. That Evaluation, Ongoing And Unadulterated By Politics, May Be The One Thing A Country Absolutely Owes The Soldiers Who Defend Its Borders.

The Only Thing That Makes Battle Psychologically Tolerable Is The Brotherhood Among Soldiers. You Need Each Other To Get By.

Ironically, Though Our Society Of Affluence Brings Safety And Stability, It Doesn't Bring Psychological Health. As Wealth Goes Up, Suicide And Depression Rates Tend To Go Up. I Read One Study That Compared Women In North America With Women In Nigeria, And The Group With The Highest Rates Of Depression Was Urban North American Women, Which Is The Wealthiest. Now, There Are Obviously Huge Stresses That Come With Poverty, But The Poorer The Society, The More Collaborative People Have To Be.

All Journalists Hope That Their Work Will Inspire A Broader Conversation. I Think That's Just What Journalism Is.

One Interesting Thing I Found Was That If You Take An Affluent Modern Society And Collapse It During A Crisis, Like A War Or A Natural Disaster, People Begin Relating In A More Ancient, Organic Way. They're Functioning In Small Interdependent Groups And Putting Others First. And Another Irony Is That Even In Terrible Times, Cooperating Makes People Feel Good.