“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,” it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. A Latin phrase. Written propaganda. An ideology many Americans, and many people around the world, still believe. An idea that the greatest honor, the greatest glory, is to serve, fight and die for your nation.

The practice is as old as civilization. Violence has long been rooted within us as people. Violence caused by those in power, fought by those who simply hope to end it and restore peace. War is brutal and unforgiving to those who risk and lose their lives in its name.

The flaws within human nature follow us into every aspect of war. Whether those flaws are greed, pride or hatred, there is one that often hides beneath the others: bloodlust. To witness genocide, to see hundreds and thousands die. After World War I, war became increasingly industrial and mechanized. While war has never existed without death, the destruction of modern warfare has turned conflicts into more than a fight over right and wrong. Too often, the objective becomes destruction itself.

War is something many of us only hear about in history classes. We forget how serious it truly is. Not everyone has this privilege, but many live with the luxury of distance, hearing about war in classrooms or in news reports from places that feel far away. While people say ignorance is bliss, we cannot forget those who have given their lives for our nation or the true cost of bloodshed.

I won’t say there is no honor in serving, and I won’t say war is always unnecessary. It would be unreasonable to claim either. There are countless reasons conflicts begin: genocide, land disputes, terrorism and more. War can be used to aid those in need. Global crises often demand action in pursuit of a cause greater than ourselves. Yet solving conflicts at the cost of countless lives will never be truly just. Those who start wars are rarely the ones who risk their lives to fight them.

In World War I alone, an estimated 8.5 to 10 million soldiers died. World War II claimed roughly 21 to 25 million more. As technology advances, war becomes less a battle of ideas and more a battle of destruction.

Many of those soldiers were barely out of school, often between 18 and 20 years old, their lives moving from classrooms to battlefields.

Since World War II, the United States has not officially declared victory in a major war. More than 20 conflicts, countless deaths, and the fighting has continued.

While the United States remains a global superpower, our flaws persist in our conflicts. In Vietnam especially, the nation saw the horrors of war, the lies many believed, and the lives lost by soldiers who died without clear purpose or victory.

If we live in a society that preaches war as necessary and promises glory through death, we risk moving backward, toward an uncivil practice better suited to an uncivil nation.

“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.”