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It's pretty much one-sided. We glorify them while they're fighting for us, but when they retire from fighting, or the fighting is done, we treat them like shit (basically, that second person could BE a past soldier and people would think he's a piece of shit because "there are people dying for our freedom every day" and "he's asking for hand outs").
Then, once a year, we parade them around (usually just the older veterans, from wars like Korea and WWII) to show how much we appreciate them.
Except we refuse to hire them because they're liabilities, refuse to house them because "everyone should be self-sufficient", and we refuse to council them or get them help for things like PTSD which they only have because they "fought for us" like we used to adore them for. At which point, when they cross the line, fall apart, or do something that doesn't sit well with us, we're aghast at how a noble former soldier could possibly do this.
Unless they're Muslim, in which case they've been indoctrinated by the terrorist scum.
Some soldiers get prosthetic limbs (though not all of the ones that need them), some that are paralyzed or mentally disabled get taken care of their whole lives, and everyone can look forward to trying to get a college degree "for free" after being in the military, in order to incentivize the new generation (or rather, the poorer of the new generation), but good luck if places find out you were in the military before (especially if you were deployed), or believe your degree is trash because you got it when you turned 25-27 rather than when you were 21-23.
EDIT: D-vid, we didn't get into wars expressly because we wanted to (for the most part). The World Wars, Spanish American War, and the wars in the Middle East (Barring Iraq which most people realize was futile except for getting rid of a dictator that we put into power in the first place) had our involvement after we were attacked in some way, and even though our presidents and congress pretty much did not want to become involved, the people forced their hand with the idea that there needed to be some form of retribution. Had World War 1 gone on any longer, public opinion would have changed when they learned that nearly 15% of the country were wounded or killed fighting in some of the least major battles of the war.
Korea happened due to the communism scare and the idea that we were the best suited to go help fight another war at that point for the sake of justice. Europe backed us and provided troops for at least the first part of the war before changing their minds due to turmoil at home, but even then still encouraged us to fight the fight for them, which is kinda ironic given that most of Europe loathed us at the time for being glory hogging war-mongers, yet still felt fine using us to take care of dirty work.
Speaking of dirty work, Vietnam started with the French begging for help in controlling their colony, which they handled badly. After we got in (which we only did because of the spread of communism, not really to help France), the French pulled out and gave up control, it became very apparent that the US could not fix what France broke there.
I'm not here to justify war at all, but frankly, all but Iraq were unavoidable, either because the American people would not allow themselves to be attacked without retaliating, or because other countries tried to coerce us into helping because "International Peace" and/or "fighting Communism". Hell, England was so mad about us refusing to enter World War 1, that they were complacent with letting the Lusitania sink, as they figured it'd force our hand to join.
But please, do tell how much we love going out and beating up kids for their lunch cheddar, as if no one else in the developed world picks up a nickel or quarter while we're doing so (yet still disapprove of us doing it), or throws a punch of their own but act like they've done nothing wrong.
_________________ -K-
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