Trump booed at World Series

[Dill]

(11-01-2019, 06:11 PM)ballsofsteel Wrote: Hi, just curious, does the thousands of vets whose only reason for joining the service was because they graduated high school, couldn't get a decent job and thought they would join up, see the world and use the gi bill for college when they get out. Or how about the thousands of service people that never left the states?  Do I have to still thank them for their service even though Protecting someone's right was the farthing thing from their mind?
If the above two don't apply to you, Thank you for your service.

I have a comment on that. Yeah, lots of people join up for reasons having nothing to do with ideals of service. A number are sucked in too, by artful recruiters.  ("See the world"--through the windows of an MRAP. LOL)
 
If you wanted to kill Al Qaeda or serve because it was "the right thing to do" back in 2001 or 2003, you could still (unhappily) serve your time in the US, or the reasonable comfort and safety of SK and Germany.  Because YOU didn't get to decide whether and where you deploy. That's part of why they call it "serving." On the flipside, people who just wanted jobs and travel sometimes found A-stan their first vacation stop. And if they were in Helmand, Kandahar or a Paki-border province, they were some distance from comfortable and safe, whatever their job. (For a full year if Army.)

I don't walk around saying "thank you for your service." (Don't like how the phrase was politicized back in 2003.) I agree there are differences in sacrifice among service members (as some of them never tire of reminding others). But I would encourage civilians to accord a basic respect everyone who put on the uniform and went to bootcamp, where they found out it's not just another job as their bodies and personalities were broken down and reconstructed as soldiers or marines or sailors or airmen who could be called upon/ordered to do their duty, whatever call came.  Not their fault if they were plugged into a motor pool in Maryland instead of a rifle squad in Fallujah. 

So in my view, wherever located or whatever was on their mind about service before, during or after, both groups (and the families who supported them) were engaged in national defense and deserve their GI bill if they served with honor.

Don't have to call them all "heros"; just basic respect. If some individual vet tries inappropriately to leverage extra authority out of his service in a political argument, don't jump to talk of "all vets" or place group honor on the line. Doesn't mean you can't stop a vet from beating his wife, or even demand ordinary civility from him. Just my three cents.