wrt your earlier post, your attitude was basically "thanks but no thanks" to patriots.
This is not some "sudden rush" of patriotism. Generally, people on FR have tremendous respect for those who served in active duty. I include myself in that number.
Some of us here have, in defending guys like you publically, had stuff thrown at us (bottles, various pieces of oranges, etc., threatened with arrest (a USSS White House security person did this during the reign of His Slickness), physically threatened by the ANSWER pukes, etc. During the reign of His Slickness, Don and Teri Adams were beaten up by Teamster union goons because they were insisting on the rule of law. Some hellholes were right here in THIS country.
Just because you may have served in the military does not give you the right to p*ss on what the rest of us are doing. If you want to go polish your halo, go ahead, but don't expect me to be there to help you, not with your attitude.
There you go again - being ignorant. I am not pissing on what you are trying to do, just grounding you in reality! You seem to think that I am out trying to make myself out to be the real patriot or something. Well, I did what I did because I grew up as a part of the President Kennedy generation - "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." I did it out of a sense of duty - "Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less." -R.E. LEE
But you should remember that there are many who served during the time when it was not popular, and who were spat upon and reviled by the more "enlightened" (sarcasm) college students, and some of the WW2 generation (they came home heroes and not the villains), and we are not so willing to just blindly accept all the adulation. You see, you have never felt betrayed by the country you fought to protect. We were the scapegoats for failed governmental policies and the loss of a war. Now you expect us just to blindly accept all this praise as genuine. Well it may be, but you are the one who needs to have the reality check and understand where we are coming from. We (myself and too many others) have seen too many supposed "good deals" turn bad when adversity sets in. We watched as our fellow American citizens treated us like unwanted ba*tard step-children. No sir, we were good enough to serve, but not good enough to be integrated back into American society as acceptable citizens. Our stories?! No one cared enough to listen, so we stopped trying to tell them. We came back to "no banners and no bands". We arrived home to derision and disgrace for serving honorably. Didn't matter whether you were in combat or not, if you wore a uniform, you were a pariah. And it took years for it to die down, but every once in a while it rears its ugly head. As far as the stuff you've had thrown at you for "defending us" - welcome to my world! Think how you felt about those, then magnify that 10 fold and just perhaps you will get a glimpse of how we feel.
As far as polishing my halo, heh-heh-heh sonny, I don't have one. So obviously I don't need any help polishing what I don't have.
As Doc Holiday said to the Marshal in "Tombstone" - "Forgive me if I don't shake hands."