[FreedomStar3028]

Only in the sense that it isn’t even close to what vets deserve to be treated like, society should give a pass to vets everywhere.

[Jack Hammer]

In the final analysis, maybe it all comes down to the question, “Why am I here and why am I fighting?”

If that is the case, the most common answer tends to be, “I’m fighting for my buddy beside me and the guys in the next hole.”

[abigkahuna]

If someone says to me thank you for your service, I get a little embarrassed. Hell, all I did was drink beer and chase frauleins in Germany back when Jesus was a Corporal. But I will take the thanks in the spirit it was given. Heck I have even gotten thanks from vets that came back from the real sh*t in the sandbox. I thanked them!

Heck at least someone is recognizing that you took time out from your life to do something that they did’t do. So fellow vets, my advice is to take whatever you can get these days. If folks want to thank you, just nod and say thank you back and keep marching forward and not worry if it is heartfelt enough, or if the person saying it is patriotic enough.

At least they aren’t spitting at you...

[jennings2004]

I receive a lot of “Thank yous”, never once have I concluded them to be insincere. I am especially impressed with the young people I interact with. They actually tend to prolong their conversation...and I am grateful for their comments.

[beaversmom]

I saw this image on IMGUR the other day.

Post link

Me talking:

I can't say I've done much at all for the military. I can remember sending one care package several years back...it was through some site that gave you a choice of whom and where to send. I think it was Afghanistan where it got sent. It was fun to gather items from a list of approved and needed things, and forward them on. I'm sure they still have such organizations so this is probably a good reminder for me to check into it again.

And then last Thanksgiving, I made 4 pies and took them over to the nearby Veteran's Home. Other than those two things, that's it!!!

I love my country, but I'm not self-sacrificing. I'm not a hero. That's the truth. I do appreciate what others have done in our history...Americans and the British. I'm interested in their stories. I was always interested in what my dad had to say. Even though my dad has pretty severe dementia at this point, my oldest son said not too long back, my dad could still relate some of his war stories to him. My two sons were dropped off from Boy Scouts Tuesday night by a granddad to a troop mate. He was in Korea and Vietnam. They were his car, outside the house, for quite a bit listening to his war stories. They both really enjoyed it.

My dad was in the Army Air Corps for 1 year and then the Air Force. He signed up when he was 17 in 1947. He signed up 'cause he had no other options to be quite honest. I'm sure he would say the same. He was very poor. He grew up during the Depression. He was raised by a single, alcoholic mom. She died when he was 16. He wanted to get out of the town he was in that had absolutely no path to anything that he could see. I think the cotton mill was about the best you could do at the time there. I know he tried to lie about his age so he could get into WWII, but a person in town ratted him out to the recruiter. So he was caught up in that fervour to serve his country to whatever extent during that time. He was only 15 when he lied trying to join, but he had to wait a couple more years.

He was in the military during Korea, but he didn't have to go there. He was in Vietnam.

I know he had some not so nice things to say about the military over the years. He saw a lot of what he thought was stupidity from people and the overall mindset. But it was a good path for him having only made it to 6th grade in school. He got his high school equivalency and was trained for the fire department which he did for his full career and also in civil service after he retired from the military in 1968. He worked up to Fire Chief. My three older brothers all went into the Air Force upon graduation in the 1970s. They had no choice. My dad made them. The oldest stuck around an extra year waiting for the second oldest to get out after 4 years so they could team up and room together. And my third oldest brother also got out after 4 years. All three of them hated it.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

When someone says “Thank you for your service” to me, I usually reply with something like “It was my pleasure” or “It was my honor” and that's how I truly feel. I am honored to have served for the forces that have created the greatest amount of good and freedom in the world.

I first came in after the Vietnam war. All of my leaders I got to emulate were the Vietnam vets. It's probably why I can't stand the 60’s hippies. It was sort of transferred from my first leaders who blamed them for the main reason they were not allowed to win the Vietnam war. After we came back from the first Gulf War is when I noticed a change in the public’s attitude towards the military. Before then, no one really cared.

If I have one beef, it is somewhat alluded to in the article. Because most of America does not have any stake in the military or what's going on, they don't understand the gravity of the situation right now. Even though Obama said he was going to end the war in Iraq the enemy has a say in the matter. This war has never ended, it has metastasized. We are still in the same war now it's just that America does not realize it. America needs to make the sacrifices needed to end this conflict and it has not yet. We are going on in this pseudo war forever until we get a commander in chief who can rally the American people to get the job done!

[Iron Munro]

Liberals mouth phrases “Support the troops” to provide cover for their true leftist beliefs and their dislike for nationalism, the military, weapons and Americanism in general.

During and after Vietnam they showed their real feelings about the military and eventually that backfired on them.

So now they say the words and pretend to support the military as a form of insurance.

Don’t forget that many of the most influential leftists of today are the same people who spat on the military and blew up police stations back in the 1960’s.

THey haven’t changed their core beliefs, they have just developed ways of hiding them.

[exDemMom]

People say to me, “Thank you for your service” all the time. Someone at the security station on post said it to me yesterday, when I was getting a temporary pass to go on post because I had forgotten my ID card.

If I remember, I say, “And thank you for your support!” Usually, I don’t remember, so I just say “Thank you!”

I think that military personnel get a lot of support. Many businesses offer military discounts—I went to a Burger King drive through the other day, and when I got up to the window to pay, the clerk saw me and said “Oh, military!” and gave me a HUGE discount on the order. Every Hard Rock Cafe I have visited gives military discounts.

The fact that most people have not served and have no personal experience of service is not going to change. Only a limited number of people can join, and with the services drawing down, that number is decreasing. OTOH, the military can afford to be very picky about whom it allows to join—for the most part, only the best get in. I can truly say that I have never worked with a bad soldier (or airman or sailor).

[noodler]

You folks are doing a good job. Rt etc. Remember, if we weren’t at each other’s throat all the time, good things happen. What you sow, you will reap and short sighted will lose wonderful food supply. You need to watch out for China. They are going first.

[mylife]

Imagine being one of the 50 special forces Obie is sending to Syria to fight off Ivan and Assad, and tasked to help the ISISholes.
Obama supports our troops...

[Smokin' Joe]

The Vietnam War was a different story entirely. In many ways, it was the beginning of the giant schism in American society between the military and the public. Even though there was a draft, wealthy kids could stay in college on deferment after deferment, while others who couldn't afford college or who didn't have the brains or the desire to attend a university, were subject to the draft and a ticket to Southeast Asia.

But some of those who had the means and the brains enlisted and didn't wait for the draft.

For those who had the means but not the inclination, the deferment was the means by which the New Left skewed the pool of teachers, sociologists, psychologists, journalists, etc. to the Left, towards their Communist ideologies, and so populated those sectors with people polluted by their ideology they guaranteed the next wave of leftist minds would have the credentials to propel their mindset forward another generation.

While Americans were winning the war in jungles, rice paddies, and skies over Southeast Asia, another war was being lost in the universities and television studios of America.

The result: a gigantic cultural divide between the mainly blue collar military and the public who gradually began to blame the war on the troops and began to lash out at the brave men who fought in Vietnam.

A public who had lost the basic belief that our cause was just, our warriors noble in their task, who had lost sight that the fight for freedom at home and abroad was a worthy fight, because their minds had been filled with the muddied mush our enemies fed them daily from the bully pulpits of the news media, the entertainment sector, and every aspect of popular culture.

In sync with our enemies' agenda, even as we showed our martial might, we allowed our cause to be undermined, we quit having our children pledge their allegiance to their Country and their God at the start of their school day, abandoned clarity of thought for the 'expansion of minds' and turned our cultural back on the concept that an idea can be unequivocally right to the exclusion of all other ideas. While the messiness of war was played across magazine pages and the television to horrify the insulated masses, the slaughter of babies in the womb was declared a 'right'.

There are some things which will always be right, and some which will never be right. There are some people, people who do or did run toward the sounds of trouble rather than away, who know this deep in the fiber of their being. For them no explanation is necessary; for those who do not understand, none will suffice.

America has trivialized so much with 'hashtag this' and "save the..." that that even sincere thanks come out in catch phrases that have been stripped of value and become cliches, despite being genuinely meant to convey respect, thanks, and admiration.

Just send a check, pennies a day to...and you will be absolved... That is what 'caring' has been largely reduced to. People 'communicate' via Facebook or linkedin or text back and forth across the table, not face to face.

Scoundrels do hide behind those phrases, and the sincere may be stripped of credibility by the triteness of those combinations of words that rise so easily, almost fashionably to their lips, no matter how sincerely they are meant.

And while you were away, some pencil-neck in human resources was cooking up a new policy which would have you keel-hauled for calling some stupid ______ (fill in the blank) a stupid ______ (fill in the blank) in just so many words.

It makes the transition from living and playing and fighting rough to the rabbithole of civilian Candyland harder; the tendency to engage in conflict resolution under a different, more basic set of rules suddenly unacceptable--to the same people you were fighting for.

Keep in mind most of them have never had to depend on the person next to them for their well being or their very lives. Some of them have only watched another's back for the opportunity to put the proverbial knife in.

Many who are sincere will find another way to say thanks, beyond the phrases rendered trite by people who use them without understanding, but that does not mean those who do understand mean what they say any less when they say thanks. Take it at face value, most of us mean it.

FWIW, I am not a veteran, was a firefighter/EMS for a while, and have worked nearly 4 decades in the oil patch, where about half of the people I have worked with have been veterans.

When I say "Thanks" --and that's for whatever you did, from paperwork or answering phones to heavy contact--I mean it.

[CIB-173RDABN]

They mean well, but it does embarrass me. The ones they should thank are the ones that did not come home. I can not remember my time in the Jungles of Viet Nam without wondering why me? Why did I survive, and the man next to me did not?

It embarrasses me that I survived.

[Bryanw92]

>>some kind of psychological Band-Aid for the majority of Americans who will never serve and have no desire to serve?

That’s what it is for most Americans. It’s just a form of fandom, much like the sports fans who talk about what “we” did on the field last weekend.

[RFEngineer]

The “hero” stuff is a bit much. My military service was simply because I felt it was an obligation I should fulfill, I did and moved on.

Today (more than I saw in the past) there is rampant rent-seeking in the military (fake end-of-service disability, PTSD). It’s impossible to have a rational discussion on how to limit these costs.

Senior leadership is rewarded for political achievement and implementation of social engineering. Half of the defense budget is consumed with non-military stuff. You’ve never seen a senior level resignation when stupid things that put troops at risk are asked of them (such as unthinkable ROE in fighting an enemy)

In the past military service was something you did and then returned to your life. Today it’s an entirely separate culture that is deliberately set apart from the rest of America. Taxpayers are expected to pay for lavish benefits for retirees who have no way of really knowing what it’s like to be a taxpaying American just trying to get by

The ability to get a lifetime “check” and basket of benefits seems to be the goal for a large part of military members/spouses.

It’s enormously expensive for what we get, and we aren’t likely to be able to sustain it.

There are taxpayer heroics that are unappreciated paying for our entire Federal rent-seeking bureaucracy, including the military.

[Neoliberalnot]

Either support or disdain for the military rests solely with the utterly corrupt old media monopoly. The new media has reignited genuine gratitude for our warriors. The old media had citizens spitting on our Vietnam vets. Jane Fonda should have been executed.

[Joe Boucher]

A few years ago I was at the Albertsons Grocery in Stuart, Florida.(which has since been closed).
I saw an older gent with a navel cap on and went and thanked him for his service.
He looked at me, smiled, broke down and started crying.
His cap said U.S.S. Indianapolis.

[rfreedom4u]

The lyrics to Taps!

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.

Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.

Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, ‘neath the stars’, ‘neath the sky’
As we go, this we know
God is nigh.

[SaraJohnson]

Veterans are the buffer zone, the middlemen and women, who can and should educate civilians about the military and more importantly about service to this country.

---

And here I thought Vets were terrorists as told to me by Homeland inSecurity. Learn something new every day.

The more dumbed down and leftist the younger generation is made via propaganda in “education”, the less volunteers the military will have.

The more the military becomes an anti-Christian, homo dominate man rape machinery, the less normal people will join the military. The more unconstitutional and evil our country’s government becomes, the less there will be in motivation to fight for freedom on the side of the government.

Obama has made some serious challenges for the US military. As intended...

[beaversmom]

If anyone has any other ideas for contributing, please post:

Any Soldier
http://www.anysoldier.com/index.cfm