Men and women in uniform dutifully marched off to kill and to die.... on both sides of the Revolution. Historically, there's nothing more ordinary than that. Whether the nation's goals are liberation or conquest, pluralistic democracy or totalitarianism, and whether the nation is led by great men or goons like Stalin and Hitler, there never seems to be much difficulty in rounding up thousands or even millions of soldiers willing to practice violence for the State. Their heroism or villany is mostly an accident of which side they happened to be born on. So, I'd say that attributing the country's independence to those in uniform only makes as much sense as attributing its former subservience, and the subsequent threats to its independence, to those in uniform. There are soldiers on both sides of every conflict, so I don't see any moral elevation in soldiers as a group. What's a lot rarer, though, are a group of high-minded politicians. Like their evil peers, high-minded politicians seldom have trouble rounding up soldiers to kill and die for their vision, but the difference is the nature of that vision, which can, occassionally, make the sacrifices worth it.

As for your closer, here's the question: "What state of affairs proves to be a counter-productive waste of human life and human effort, the vast majority of the time?" War is the answer.