>>>>Honor where honor is due, but no more than that - I'd actually prefer to keep the soldiers out of politics, even when they retire.
>>>
>>>With that attitude, we should have never elected....hmmm....lets see....George Washington, Zachary Taylor, Andrew Jackson, Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, or John Kennedy.
>>
>>Hey, just a preference, based on bad experience. You were lucky, then.
>
>Hard to compare the Serbian experience with the American, I agree. But we weren't lucky. You see, military experience, especially under duress, gives a candidate a sense of how to be a leader. Sometimes it teaches the wrong lessons, for example, look at Grant's presidency. But more often it's a good thing.

In a culture which believes in leaders, tough love and a few other cultural artifacts, it can be.

Also, another difference that I now remembered, is the difference between yesterday's guerrilla's generals and academy generals. The latter were exposed to other arts and sciences as well, and shaped by the general knowledge of the humanity, plus the code of honor or whatever other taming factor civilization imposed. The guerrilla generals learned everything from each other and from their enemy, mostly.

OTOH, the academy generals tend to think strictly inside the box. That's their weak spot.