I just started showing off mine. Not sure if I am brave or crazy. Both, maybe.

I am just going to gush all over you guys - erikaj - you are all kinds of crazy. I have never ever seen one ep of Homicide and your crossover fic is what made me finally venture into LJ land - (eeeek!) which is where I found all the links to Plei's fic. Ya'll rawk.

Wow, really? How nice.(It really is, even if I'm sarcastic a lot.) Plei does write some amazing stories, and wow, quite a lot, too. And lots of times they make me look like "a shiny, happy, person" in comparison, so thanks for that, too, if you don't mind my saying.But my first efforts were breathtakingly hideous. And I can admit that, pretty much.

How many units were completely wiped or suffered enormous casualties?

Well, I don't know about any other military, but I found comparative US statistics:
[link]

For WWII, it lists there being 16 million+ US soldiers, with a 6.6% casualty (2.5% death) rate over 44 months. Combined Civil War statistics note just under 4 million soldiers, with a 25.1% casualty (14.4% death) rate over 48 months. So overall casualties in raw numbers? Only 100,000 more in WWII than in the Civil War. Whoa. Who doesn't love (a) helmets, (b) penicillin, and (c) getting driven to your battlefield instead of having to walk there?

Soldiers who retired from WW2 and other big conflicts were the exceptionally lucky ones.

Well, for the US soldiers (and this averages out all of the high- and low-risk occupations), you had a 94.4% chance of coming home with no official casualty. Clearly, they don't calculate post-war stress casualties, but we're talking about slayers, who don't have a post-war period, so I'm okay with that.

a more assertive woman might see the Slayer as an attactive option.

If it were an option, maybe. It's not -- it seems to be compulsory. They let Buffy take her time off, when she demanded it; but they didn't let Faith "retire" until after they'd tried automatic weapons on her.

I think, if I weren't allowed to quit my job on pain of automatic weapons, I would have severe issues with my job, even if it were Greenpeace or the Saintliest Orphanage And Soup Kitchen In the World.

Wow, really

Absolutely, really.

And whew. I was feeling like a big weirdo for getting all gushy there for a second. Because I don't post in the fic threads and I don't ever send feedback on any fic I read (Is that awful? Is it bad form? I just don't know what to say other than "boy that was fun" or "you're 14 aren't you?").

I think that's what f/b is, other than the times when I felt really bad about myself and I would correct somebody's grammar at ff. net and sign it "A Sympathetic Friend" or something. Then, it was bitchy and possibly hostile...I'm not sure.

And clearly not a slacker.

HAHAHA!

No, I'm a total slacker, I just don't sleep.

Okay, let's talk numbers.

Let's say the Watcher's Council and its predecessors all the way back to the Shadow Men are directly or indirectly responsible for killing a girl every four years for the past four thousand years. That's a thousand girls.

How many guys died in the Normandy invasion again, allied troops? Is that 6% for the US still looking like such a good bargain?

Let's consider how many innocents were saved from vampires by Slayers during all that time. Let's consider how many apocalypti were averted. Those are the kinds of decisions that generals and councils charged with defending us in wars, secret, dirty, overt, otherwise, have to make. They don't always make fair or just or smart decisions, but they were the ones in the hot seat when someone said, "it's your call." And they have to carry the burden of those decisions.

Let's say Quentin Travers was personally responsible for say, 20 girls? How does that stack up against the innocents who were saved by the Slayer soldiers under his watch? Is he an evil man? We don't like him and we aren't supposed to like him, he represents the patriarchy after all. And he's mean to Giles, who we admire and adore. What does Giles look for when Buffy has the upper hand? Vengeance?

Nope, reinstatement.

I think the key difference between the Slayers and drafted soldiers is that, by the standards of the present day, the Slayers are children and draftees are not. (One could argue that last point, but legally one is almost completely adult at 18.)

Let's say the Watcher's Council and its predecessors all the way back to the Shadow Men are directly or indirectly responsible for killing a girl every four years for the past four thousand years. That's a thousand girls.

How many guys died in the Normandy invasion again, allied troops? Is that 6% for the US still looking like such a good bargain?

You're looking at this so differently than I would, that I think the conversation is going to die a natural death. I am looking at rates. 100% of slayers were drafted, and 100% of slayers had to stay slayers until their deaths. As far as we know, until Buffy-Kendra and Buffy-Faith, and then finally, Chosen, 100% of slayers were the only person in the world who could be slayer, while they were slayer.

I am not denigrating real life soldiers. I come from a long line of them. My maternal grandfather got a testicle shot off (although was still able to erm... be a father). My father lost the better part of his hearing. But comparing an army, some of whom joined up, some of whom drafted, and all of whom can look forward to being released from service someday, assuming they survive is apples to the oranges of 1 girl, in all the world, with the weight of the world solely on her shoulders, who has to stay a slayer (even if she chooses not to fight, she retains the strength, and so the guilt) until the day she dies.