DmanA, it's VERY simple. You enlist, you have no idea what might happen. You might spend your term of service stateside in peacetime, but you also might be alerted in the dead of night that you're being shipped out to some dangerous locale. You have volunteered to, if need be, die for your country. But you have made that choice. It's a choice a lot of us never chose to make. Those that did, deserve our ultimate respect.
I don’t know what your beef is.
OBVIOUSLY veteran deserve our respect. That’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about a victim of a crime. I don’t think a Vet is less a victim or more a victim because of he’s a vet. So in the context of this discussion the victim’s veteran status is completely irrelevant.
In other contexts OF COURSE it’s relevant.