Don,

I think both you and Sharon have valid arguments. To Sharon I say I myself am a war veteran, USMC Infantry, and as you say a lot of us do not rob and kill. However there are a lot of guys who were not able to handle the stress of combat and it did not show up for years. It is hard to readjust to a relatively peaceful environment after continuously living with the uncertainty of hazardous situations. And Don, when I was a lad of 12 my great-grandfather told me of his life as a preteen and a teenager in Missouri. He happened to mention his neighbors of the time whom he admired very much. These were Frank and Jesse James. As he told it he wanted very much to emulate them. At the age of eighteen, around 1884, several years after the demise of the James Younger gang, he was involved in a shooting scrape in the town where lived. His mother, my great-great-grandmother, sent him to her sister in Virginia so he would not be tempted by that sort of life. His mother died of typhoid a year after he left and he never returned to Missouri. My g-g-grandfather was a peaceful man but one could see the "Wildwood Boy" in him. Even though I do not condone the actions of the James, they must be admired for their tenacity. As a decendant of Confederate Partisans, I am very proud of my heritage.