Originally Posted by
vern
@rodsky ... that is a sad story ... but that is not war. Raids and regional conflicts cannot be compared to war that engulfs whole nations.
I guess the term "Mindanao War" or the phrase "the war in Mindanao" is a misnomer and in error, then? And that the press, heck even Philippines Presidents, past and present should be corrected for referring to it as such during their reports and speeches?
You asked if anyone had experiences being in a war. First, let's define war.
War (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
War is the reciprical and violent application of force between hostile political entities aimed at bringing about a desired political end-state via armed conflict. In his seminal work, On War, Carl Von Clausewitz calls war the "continuation of political intercourse, carried on with other means."[1] War is an interaction in which two or more militaries have a “struggle of wills”.[2] When qualified as a civil war, it is a dispute inherent to a given society, and its nature is in the conflict over modes of governance rather than sovereignty. War is not considered to be the same as mere occupation,murder or genocide because of the reciprical nature of the violent struggle, and the organized nature of the units involved.
War is also a cultural entity, and its practice is not linked to any single type of political organisation or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his “History Of Warfare”, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it. [3] The conduct of war extends along a continuum, from the almost universal tribal warfare that began well before recorded human history, to wars between city states, nations, or empires. A group of combatants and their support is called an army on land, a navy at sea, and air force in the air. Wars may be prosecuted simultaneously in one or more different theatres. Within each theatre, there may be one or more consecutive military campaigns. A military campaign includes not only fighting but also intelligence, troop movements, supplies, propaganda, and other components. Continuous conflict is traditionally called a battle, although this terminology is not always fed to conflicts involving aircraft, missiles or bombs alone, in the absence of ground troops or naval forces.
War is not limited to the human species, as ants engage in massive intra-species conflicts which might be termed warfare. It is theorized that other species also engage in similar behavior, although this is not well documented.
In my account, there are two opposing political entities involved. You therefore asked, if anyone had any experience being in the middle of armed conflict between two opposing political entities, and I posted something about it. I don't see the need to downplay my account nor compare it to the Seige of Bastogne, or the Massacre at Nanjing. If however, you asked if I was at a beachhouse at Normandy in July 1944, or a beerhouse in Saigon during the Tet offensive, then certainly I wouldn't have dared to post anything.
-RODION
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