war-weary

I just heard a conversation about how Americans are less likely to be war-weary now than a few years ago.

I always bristle at the term "war-weary." That's because war profiteers and saber-rattlers don't particularly mind a public that's war-weary. What would make them tremble in fear would be a public that's war-wise.

How I wish we were the latter and not the former!! The conclusions might be the same, but the pathway there is of incredible importance to what happens months and years from now. Weariness can easily be overcome, and Americans, like many others through history, can buck up very very quickly when either real duty calls or profiteers scream of duty through million-dollar megaphones. Wisdom is something altogether different. Please let us be neither war-weary nor war-keen but war-wise.