I served in the Pacific in WWII and my brother was killed in the battle for Okinawa. Like so many who fought and died in WWII we did it to pay homage for goodness and opportunity in a great Nation established by some great free people. I reject your attitude about service in WWII. I do get a bit of your argument since that war because I do believe our latest ‘wars’ have been for other things dearer to presidents than the survival of the USA as intended by the Founders.
Were you Army or navy?
I had a customer who wrote a book on his Army experiences in the Pacific, and his focus was how the media turned it into a Marine theater, although the Army did the bulk of the fighting.
Many people don’t know that in WWII, the Navy lost more than double the men of the Marine Corps.
WWII wasn’t like the wars since.
WW-II, in my view, was the one conflict in the last century for which a US draft could have been justified and you have to note that a draft was not needed for WW-II, at least not for combat roles. WW-II was a gigantic logistics push operation in which only some small percentage of those in uniform were ever involved in combat.