Would it be smart for me to join the Armed forces after college?

Actually, military salaries have stagnated and aren't keeping up with inflation rates. You could probably fit the names of every soldier receiving a six-figure yearly salary on a single MS word document. You want to cut government spending, do it elsewhere.

How about the education system that, much like the military budget is far beyond what even the next several countries combined spend yet unlike the military, it is far from being the best in the world?

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.