Soldiering and the the Rites of Passage

Abstract

Armed forces are kept by the states for purposes of defense. Despite various claims, armies never become redundant. The need for protection of the boundaries, even though, a seemingly "old-fashioned" idea, is always there as a sheer reality to reckon with; for any given country. Being exposed to aggression is a sad probability, which may occur suddenly and hit the fate of any nation. A lot of philosophical sentences about the lacking of human reasoning in soldierly ways have also been uttered. Now, a soldier differs from a civilian and the transformation of the latter being into the former one is a radical social metamorphosis, including moral and physical factors. From an anthropological viewpoint, it is a full initiation ritual or passage rite. This fact alone renders all martial activities entirely rational and compatible with logic.