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Actually, I think I will. Now that I’ve been thinking about it, not all military veterans are the same. Some of them work in areas which aren’t exactly at the bleeding edge of the front line when they are in logistics or office clerks (not that their contribution is any less valuable, but why should they be considered better than people who ARE at the bleeding edge of civilian emergency work and suffer very real danger?)

In WWII, being a member of the Merchant Navy was actually more dangerous than any branch of the armed forces, being a drafted ‘Bevin Boy’ coal miner was also very filthy and dangerous work. They didn’t wear a snappy uniform, but without their contribution, we would all have been screwed just as much as we would have been without the fighting men. They got treated like non entities afterwards, and were denied their chance to march past the cenotaphs with the old soldiers, sailors and airmen until very recently.

Like I said, I’m not denigrating the service of members of the armed forces, but why do those who have worked in essential ‘civilian’ jobs and have often been killed as a result have to be treated as inferior beings and have their service denigrated by people like you?