Agreed. And for the same reason, if someone who had never been to war said "Sure, War is dangerous but it's worth it." I would take the word over somebody who had actually fought in a war, over somebody who hadn't, about that kind of evaluation. At the same time, I wouldn't say that fighting in a war gives the same kind of privileged access to factual claims like "We could have won if we had stayed". This privileged access is not indubitable even for evaluations. It is tenuous as you said, but a lot of very real and important things are tenuous.

Thanks for taking to the time to read and comment