wyot wrote:
Covid is an illness, not a fucking war.
Perhaps, but the two are closely related.
During America's first 145 years, more military personnel perished from infectious diseases than enemy action.
This feature really lasted until WWII - when vaccines and antibiotics arrived, to reduce the affects of disease.
Combat mortality falls into two distinct eras, in the US - the Disease Era (1775/1918) and the Trauma Era (1941/present).
In the latter, stress related illnesses came to the fore - much more than illness/disease.
Suicides exceeded the disease-death toll in Iraq.
Undoubtedly, viruses were spread through the close/mandatory proximity of soldiers.
And this is something that'll have to be readdressed post-coronavirus.
Or maybe, warfare will become less claustrophobic.