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Loyalty needs first to be applied to oneself.  An individual believes and supports his or her own actions and beliefs, and if these are not consistent with what the individual wants, that person must change them.  Beyond the individual's scope of existence, those persons that are close, family and/or friends, by definition have that individual's loyalty.  If not, one leaves his or her family and finds new friends.  The next sphere is the extended community that that individual inhabits.  Being loyal to that means supporting its endeavors, and if that can't be done, convincing the community to change, or leaving that community.  So loyalty is a chain of interaction beginning with oneself, one's family, one's community, one's world.  These aren't in conflict; each stems from the other.  However, if the outside world is acting in a manner that violates an individual's sense of loyalty, that person must remain loyal to him or herself first.  Without that, the rest is meaningless.

I agree with Post #10--the type of country in which one lives certainly plays a major factor in where somebody's loyalties should lie.

In response to the other posts, my husband currently serves in the armed forces, has been to Iraq twice, and will soon be headed to Afghanistan.  My perspective on this is that by being deployed he is not choosing between me and our country but rather because of his loyalty to me and wanting to ensure that our family and other families of our country can live in safety, he serves willingly.  Yes, this is a personal decision for each person (unless one lives in a country which has a compulsory military), but it does not have to be a choice between the two if the values of both are the same.  I also look at someone's going to war for a just cause as an opportunity for that person to help further other families' loyalty to one another and perhaps to a better country in the future.