From a Chaplain who had served in Iraq

[DanaC]

I must admit, I wasn't happy with the Pavlov's dog comment. It suggests a mindlessness which I think is unfair to say the least. If you mean they are conditioned to respond in a particular way, well yes and no. I doubt they have an actual policy regarding how to return to an athem if it's been halted, but the army is a culture and those serving within it can be expected to respond in a manner appropriate to that culture. We are all culturally conditioned in many ways.

Why would soldiers in a desert, many miles from home, with their own internal culture and traditions, respond in the same way to an anthem, which for most us has little currency beyond its use in sports and national events?

On the word 'militant': I can see how the dictionary definition might give an unfair bent to Cicero's words, but frankly, I don;t see how it is not immediately apparent what the word's origins are, and how that makes it the appropriate word in this context. They are the military; they are by their choice to serve, and by their inculcation into a military culture, militant. The traditions that the military adhere to are necessarily 'militant', because they of the military.