especially the red tip!

I'm a vet, NAVY. I think you are on to something. My experience definately left some emotional baggage, but to speak fairly it was good for me as well.

I was an analyst on duty when the USS Stark was hit, it's a long story, and I may tell it some day.

I was a happy camper when we went to Iraq in '91.

How is it that a tour of a VietNam battlefield can provide perspective. IOW yes it's a jungle here as in everywhere. But many battlefields, such a Khe San are now so overgrown as to not be recongnizable sometimes even by the Marines who suffered there. What is it in these Nam battlefields that makes them so informative?

I don't believe that the military screws people up as a matter of course.

On submarines we are in a position where someone who is loose a few bolts is a significant hazard. The processes of boot camp, subsequent specialt schools (rates, MOS's, etc) and Sub School weed out people without the necessery psychic stamina to withstand weeks of close quarters and no sun light.

And you know what? I like it that way.

The environment tw, the claustrophobia, the heat, the sweat, the bugs.Tt's thick as blazes and simply swallows you into a strange kind of closed world. It's full of noises and animals that would have had you on edge 24/7. The real stuff is not a fun place to be at the best of times. To be in there knowing bands of locals who know the place are trying to kill you must've been hell.

The environment tw, the claustrophobia, the heat, the sweat, the bugs.

The tunnels -- just reading about what traps were set in them was enough to give me the jitters.

Jungle warfare must have something special to it, as accounts from people who served in the Pacific during WWII parallel Vietnam in some ways, mainly in mud, bugs, disease, and awful weather.

I saw a sub training demonstration on a news show a while back where they put a group of guys in a tank that looked a little like a stairwell, started flooding it with water, and had them locate and shut off valves before they 'drowned'.

I think I'd prefer crawling face up under razor wire with bullets whizzing past my nose.

BTW, whats long and hard and full of seamen?

I'm at the local "Westpoint" (read Royal Military Academy here in Belgium). There are a lot of crazy people in the army. And most of the more specialised troops (SF, Para-Commandos, Recce,...) are not normal, because they have to resist to conditions a normal person couldn't resist. And in the Army they are trained not to fail and this also means getting broken and being rebuild just as Bruce said.
But it's necessary to get the human resources you need an be certain your men are reliable in any condition at any moment and this means sometimes risking your life. If you can't trust your buddy, if you can't forget about death then you can't fight your war.
But the army doesn't want (too much) Rambos. Soldiers have to listen to their commander. Because soldiers shouldn't think too much. Maybe this sounds weird. But war is very complexe on the field. It isn't just marching and killing. And there are men (NCO's and officers) who will think for you and you must follow them to survive without thinking about right or wrong.
So yes, most of us are kind of crazy and to fight a war it's necessary!