Military SF - a love and hate relationship

One of the panels I didn't manage to get to at Worldcon 75 was titled Military SF - Pro-war or Anti-war?  And it struck me that the panel's title reflects my ambivalence about military SF.

I've always felt uneasy reading books where the central focus is on human beings engaged in killing others.  Perhaps part of that is because I come from a civilian family.  So I have a civilian's sensibilities when it comes to thinking about war.  This may be why I'm just not drawn to galaxy-spanning SF where uncaring people slaughter millions just to keep their pet ideology alive.

I've just finished reading one such book, which was nominated for several awards.  One of the central characters had slaughtered millions in his quest to take down an (admittedly brutal) central ruling body.  I couldn't care what happened to any of the characters, because they didn't care about anything other than their personal survival.  I'm looking for a greater sense of morality for a character if I'm to care about them.

On the other hand, I love Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War books.  Strictly speaking, Ky Vatta isn't military, having been kicked out of Spaceforce, but the Space Defence Force she puts together is every bit as military.  But several viewpoints in the books are of civilians, and the books are as much about the impact of war on them as they are about the military's manoeuvres.  The story makes it clear that the military's purpose is to protect those civilians.  Moon's Serrano Legacy is straightforward military, but again with several civilian viewpoints.  My favourite scene in the series is right at the end, with a ceremony that toasts "absent friends" (those who have been killed).  Moon writes of grizzled military commanders in tears, remembering friends they've lost.  That brings home the true cost of war to me.

I also love Karen Traviss's Halo : Kilo Five books.  Again this is straightforward military SF, but again some of the viewpoints are of civilians.  My favourite line is: "my name is Staffan Sentzke, and I never meant to become a terrorist."  He's a father whose daughter disappeared when she was young, who  won't believe his daughter is dead.  He spends decades looking for her.  She is now an elite solder, and their reunion is painful.

This is the kind of military SF I do like, stories where the impact of war on people's lives is clear.  Warfare to keep a calendar straight and exotic weapons working just doesn't cut it for me.  It has to impact people, and I have to be able to care about those people.