If you want to talk about bravery, you've got to talk about the infantry. Here's how Lee Child describes it: "The infantry puts up with a world of shit. They live in holes in the ground, cold, wet, muddy, , hungry, with incoming mortars and artillery and rockets and bombs, and gas, and air assault and missiles, and they have nothing ahead of themexcept barbed wireand machine gun nests."

If you want to talk of bravery, just be an infantryman in an invasion scenario for just one day. And, the miracle is that we have thousands of these young men doing this, not only day after day, but month after month and yes, year after year.If you wonder why good good leaders are reluctant to to put boots on the ground , the above is one reason. Not because of a political concern , but because of a human one.And, that's only the good leaders. Some leaders do this for personal aggrandizement, with no regard for for human life, on either side . That's why when I hear certain generals who are touted as great winning strategists, I think about the guys in the holesin the ground and I wonder where he would be without those brave souls who kill people and break things for him?