Career Soldiers

I suppose you're right, not all wars are fought over moral or cultural differences, and sometimes the moral issues are just a convenient excuse or a propaganda tool to sell the war to the people. Then there are the career soldiers. If they weren't fighting on one side, they would be fighting on the other and, if there weren't any sides to choose from, they would make one up. Not all career soldiers are all that eager to fight either, some of them choose military life as an alternative to working for a living and hope they'll never have to go to war. When I was in the army, we used to call them "lifers", but our cook Smitty insisted there was a difference between a lifer and a career soldier. He said that a lifer was someone who couldn't do anything on the outside, while a career soldier was someone who couldn't even do anything on the inside.

I think the reason soldiers used to switch sides during the Middle Ages was that they were loyal to their boss rather than to their country. If you asked one of them which side they were on, they would say something like, "I serve the Duke of Earl". If the Duke switched sides, all his subjects were expected to switch right along with him. To not do so would be considered treason. After awhile, a hierarchal structure came into being. The Duke of Earl served the Count of Monte Cristo, who served the King of Spades, who served the Holy Roman Emperor. The Holy Roman Emperor was supposed to serve the Pope, but sometimes they had a falling out and ended up fighting against each other. It wasn't until the 19th Century, when Italy became organized into a nation-state, that the Pope's authority was limited to religious matters.

Then there were the Vikings. They weren't really soldiers, more like bandits or pirates. The Huns and the Mongols were like that too. They weren't interested in acquiring real estate and collecting taxes, all they wanted was whatever they could carry away with them. I remember reading about a famous battle, but I have forgotten the name of it or where it was fought, although I'm pretty sure it was somewhere in Europe. The Mongols besieged this city and offered to forego the customary looting and pillaging if the city's inhabitants would surrender 10% of their gold, 10% of their livestock, and 10% of their women. The gold and the livestock were no problem, but the women were a deal breaker. I suppose the Mongols, considering the women to be just another commodity, found it hard to understand why the Europeans didn't at least make a counter offer. Long story short, the Mongols sacked the city and moved on. Eventually, though, the Vikings, Huns, and Mongols married local girls, settled down in various places, and blended in with their neighbors. Truth be known, there is probably a little of their DNA in all of us, some more than others.

If you want to talk about your "cruise, quest, war, or climb" theory, you're going to have to give me more information. I am not familiar with the model but, at first glance, it seems over simplified to me. I think a lot of people just slouch through life without a clue about why they're here, where they came from, or where they're going. Are those the "cruise" people?