Your Survival And War

World headlines have an effect on your survival. If your country goes to war with another country or even participates in "peacekeeping", you or your loved ones could end up in a military uniform and become cannon fodder. 

Even people whose religious beliefs do not allow military service can be affected by a war. I know a lot of Seventh Day Adventists who refused to serve in the military during WWII. 

Now, when this situation arises, the Conscientious Objector is allowed to perform non-military public service or sometimes non-fighting functions such as medical personnel jobs. 

All of the Seventh Day Adventists that I mentioned had been put in prison because of their refusal to serve in the military. In the event of a draft today, the C. O. s would be offered the other service options instead of a choice between following their religious beliefs or going to prison.

Even if you do not have religious beliefs or think that you need to be concerned about a draft, you could still be affected by your country going to war. When a country runs short of troops during war time, it is not uncommon to start putting people who are not usually eligible for military service, into battle. This has meant that elderly, young boys, and disabled are sent to fight. Since women are being used increasingly in the military, it is likely that women would be used to fight as well, when troops get scarce.

There are reasons why you will be affected by war even if there is absolutely no worry about going to battle. Most of those have to do with money.

You probably noticed that it takes a lot of money to go to war. All of that military money takes money away from other things. That can mean cuts to everything from libraries, to medical care, to retirement money, to schools, roads, public buildings and judicial systems. If it takes money, it can probably be cut for war money.

One of the reasons why a war costs so much money is that it takes a lot of supplies to keep troops in the field. During a war, the military usually gets priority over supplies. That can lead to rationing for the general public. 

Even if the general public is not forced into actual rationing, the amount of supplies needed for the military during war can raise prices. If the military needs a lot of fuel, the fuel price is very likely to rise for the general public. 

The same thing can happen with any other supplies that the military needs during war. This can mean food, leather, fabric, metal, or manufactured goods or anything else. If the military needs a lot of it, the price will probably go up for you to get it.

Most of the people in the world already know that their survival is affected by what happens in the Middle East. Fuel prices can go up if fighting in oil fields or supply lines, stops the oil getting out.

I have discovered that a lot of people do not know very much about the Middle East, or think much about what happens there can affect them. I am going to write about that tomorrow.