I can 100 per cent understand your POV, and I can understand my neighbor's POV (nam vet also, as myself) who delights in setting off things that go boom, as often as possible.
We take our experiences and circumstances and make sense of them to our selves first.
There are probably 2 million opinions on this.
Mine? I like rockets, bombs, the sound and smell of gunfire, not so much for the destruction it may represent, more for liberty, and the ability to secure it.
Oh, I like settings off alright. Fun stuff.
All I describe are the hidden horrors that stay with you as long as your heart beats and sometimes a sudden loud bang - unexpected - brings everything back.
It’s all our own and those latest generations of fighters home from war. The one blessing for them so far is that no one openly insults them or makes fun of them. Those of us from our war weren’t as lucky.
My fellow workers at Lockheed used to drop steel plates behind me to see me jump and yelled “hit the deck” and laughed when I did. We had to deal with hostility or indifference when we came home. The Lefties called us “baby killers” and spat on us. The older vets asked us “when are you going to win your war - we won ours”.
That’s just the way it goes. We have each other, that’s all.