the armed forces, any branch in fact, arn't simply about sticking a rifle in a soldiers hands, pointing them at the "enemy", and telling them to kill. plenty of people go in for other careers, the mrs was going to take a military scholarship to medical school many years ago, and join the army as a doctor, her reasons? always wanted to be a dr, and was patriotic, the doctors in the indian army don't carry firearms. if it's purely about killing, the armed services have been making a right balls up of it for over 20 odd years now, ever since we saw footage of raf hercules crews dropping food aid in famine dtricken ethiopia, the navy assiting in the south east asia tsunami, and the army getting stuck in the pakistan earthquake, and gawd knows how many other humanitarian and peacekeeping missions inbetween.
their "pride" as you put it, would come from providing a service, at possible risk to themselves, when very few are willing to do it, and the majority would rather sneer from the sidelines, or worse, damn them.
