Should Christians be in the military?

This is sure a tough question. We dealt with it for the last couple of weeks in Counter Culture. One of the neat but frustrating things about these kinds of questions is that we get to see how complex the issue is. It is neat because we get past simplistic answers that do not deal with the real issues. It is frustrating because by the end, it is hard to come out of the discussion with THE answer. Maybe I should say, it "used to be" frustrating. I enjoy the struggle and really like seeing college students wrestle with the issues. I've certainly had to wrestle with the issue myself. Yesterday, Saheba joined our group because the question interested her. She is preparing to leave to start her Air Force training. She is just one of several examples of this hitting close to home. We have other students with family or friends in the military.

I'm wondering what more of you think about this question. How does our Christianity affect a decision to be in the military and to what extent does it affect what we are willing to actually do in the military? How does the "enemy love" of Matthew 5 affect our decisions? What is a Christian response to evil, death, and war? More to the point, if we claim to follow Jesus, what is his response to evil, death, war?