"Sacrifice Life And Limb" but for what?

Recently I've had some very troubling thoughts. If these guys are willing to sacrifice life and limb for the ideals of their society, for a common belief that we call a nation, then why are they mistrusted, and in some cases even despised?

I know the fact that they carry weapons is a factor, and another part is that some of them believe that because of that sacrifice they're willing to make they are above the rest of us; but despite these rotten apples, have you said thank you to a soldier on the street lately, and if you don't see soldiers close to you, have you at least thought about them lately? or are they just something you'd rather forget?

The only problem is when you think about enemy soldiers. Then you feel the right to hate, despise, loathe and many other things. But aren't they fighting for the same reason as ours? to defend their ideals? their notion of right and wrong? (and bear in mind that this applies to soldiers, not to criminals who use car bombs and murder tens or hundreds of civilians just for the media spectacle of it) they are just like our soldiers, and I say ours without distinction, because in the end it doesn't matter to which country they belong to, they are out there fighting and dying so someone, probably you and me, can live the way we do, and if not us, then someone on the other side.

Maybe what we should do is simply abolish every single army in the world, or better yet, combine all of them into a giant security core, dedicated to maintaining the peace between mankind. The only problem is that before something as Utopian as that to happen, we all have to learn a basic truth that most religions and governments on this side of the world have forgotten: "No One Man Has The Universal Truth". Not about God, nor about how to rule a country; we are all as right or as wrong as the next persons point of view.