Our brothers' keepers: Hollywood has dozens of examples of soldiers who would die for their buddies. But in real life, we should be keeping them out of harm's way in the first place.

SOLDIERS, HOLLYWOOD TELLS US, DO NOT FIGHT AND die for a cause or country, but for their comrades in arms. In Hags of Our Fathers (DreamWorks SKG, 2006), the narrator of Clint Eastwood's World War II epic reports that his father and the men who fought beside him on the beaches of Iwo Jima made the ultimate sacrifice "for their buddies. They may have fought for their country, but they died for their friends, for the man in front, for the man alongside him." We Were Soldiers (Icon, 2002), Mel Gibson's film about the Vietnam War, argues that American GIs "went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end, they fought not for their country or their flag. They fought for each other."

Modern war movies began suggesting that soldiers fight and die for their buddies with the 1989 release of Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (BBC). For 30 years after World War II, Hollywood produced hundreds of war movies in which brave young men gave their all for God and country. But after Vietnam a flood of anti-war films such as Apocalypse Now (Zoetrope Studios, 1979) and Platoon (Cinema 86, 1986), pointed out the folly of fighting and dying for questionable causes and incompetent leaders. American audiences (and citizens) needed a new reason to fight, and Shakespeare's stirring tale of a warrior king came to the rescue with a heroic vision of soldiers who fight and die for one another.

On the eve of battle, young King Henry rouses his troops (and the movie audience) with the now-famous St. Crispin's Day speech, not asking them to fight for a cause or country, but for the honor and glory of standing shoulder to shoulder with other heroes, for the privilege of being admitted to that small "band of brothers" whose ties are forged in combat. "For," as Henry proclaims, "he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother."

Stephen Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (Amblin Entertainment, 1998), called by some the best war movie ever made, adopted this soldier's ethic. In the midst of the greatest battle of World War II, Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) and his brave band of Rangers do not fight and die to stop Nazi aggression but to aid a fellow soldier. And young Private Ryan (Matt Damon) explains his need to stay and fight by taking a page from Henry V: "I was with the only brothers I had left. And there was no way I was deserting them."

In the HBO series Band of Brothers, Spielberg and Hanks again affirm that a soldier's highest duty is to his buddies, and when one of the heroic paratroopers of Stephen Ambrose's World War II tale tries to explain why he fought, he quotes Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech. He fought for his brothers.

BEFORE AND DURING THE WAR IN IRAQ, MANY American politicians seized upon this notion of a soldier's duty to his buddies and tried to import this warrior's ethic home from the battlefield. Good citizens, we were told, should behave like good soldiers and should do this by standing by our troops. So when tens of millions of Americans (and a handful of our elected officials) raised questions about the justice or prudence of America's invasion of Iraq, we were not only falsely informed that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and an arsenal of WMDs but also urged to show our patriotic support for the troops by keeping silent and getting on board. ("Shut up and sing!"--as the Dixie Chicks were told.)

And as the folly of our engagement in Iraq became clearer, those who dared to suggest rethinking or withdrawing from this war were accused of trying to "cut and run," thereby abandoning our heroic men and women in uniform. Even to criticize (as many military officials have) the current surge in troop levels provokes charges of failure to support the troops.

Soldiers in combat depend upon their comrades in arms, and their duty to these buddies feels more real and urgent than any obligation to a cause or country. Moreover we count on soldiers to follow every command that does not violate some moral or legal code, and no military can allow its soldiers to debate the morality of every military action. So we expect heroic soldiers to do their duty and defend their buddies.

But in a democracy we have a different and more complex set of duties, and it is not enough for those at home simply to "support the troops." Clearly we have a duty to those we send into harm's way, and that duty includes making sure that troops get adequate protection, support, and medical care. But our moral obligations as citizens do not begin or end with our obligation to be loyal to those in combat.

FOR 1,600 YEARS CHRISTIANS HAVE KNOWN that nations have a duty to ensure that their military interventions are just; that we fight for a just cause; that we wage war with the right intent, as a last resort, and with a real chance of success. In Shakespeare's or Henry V's day, kings made these judgments, and citizens and soldiers followed their ruler's conscience into battle. But in modern democracies citizens must judge the morality of their nation's call to arms and question their government's claims about the justice of a proposed war. Our leaders have the primary responsibility to say when we must fight, but every citizen has a duty to ask hard questions, demand adequate proof, and resist the rush to war.

So let every patriotic citizen post a yellow ribbon in support of the troops, but not until we have each met our government's call to arms with a flashing yellow light demanding caution and proof. Friends don't let friends fight and die in an unjust war.

Films about the tragedies of war:

A Very Long Engagement (Warner Bros., 2004)

The Good German (Warner Bros., 2007)

Paths of Glory (Bryna Productions, 1957)

PATRICK McCORMICK, professor of Christian ethics at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.