the fact that someone puts their life on the line, by itself, does not mean their purpose is noble. the risk has to be coupled with a noble purpose. mere riskiness does not make any particular act or service praiseworthy. the riskiness might just be dumb.
People put their lives on the line in all sorts of extreme sports ventures, and it would be dumb.
People put their lives on the line in military service, and it’s probably less risky than some extreme sports ventures, but the fact that there is risk , by itself, doesn’t mean we need to be thankful for the behavior. there may be other reasons to be thankful, but not simply because the activity is risky.
For instance, someone might put their life in danger to protect some material good of mine say, run in the street in oncoming traffic to fetch something expensive that fell off my car. that would be nice of the person. i would be thankful. they saved my valuable thing by putting themselef in harms way.
but I would also think that what they were doing was incredibly dumb and foolish and, more important, pointless…
is it “juvenile” not to be grateful to that dude who ran in the street to protect my stuff?
no.
the risk to him of life and limb is “irrelevant” to whetehr or not I am truly grateful for hsi service.
now the military arguably servces a greater purpose than running into traffic to save my stuff. but it may be about the same thing. putting one’s life on the line to protect our access to resources. if it is the same thing, then…well… why are we prasing people for thei service.
people may still very well want to serve int he military. it may be a great career path. some may really get off on the idea of guns and firepower, and a smaller minority will relish the idea of getting out and killing people. others will enjoy the discipline and camaraderie.
