Veteran's Day Blog/Rant (Don't F with Vets)

It is Veteran's Day. A day to thank those who have served this country and remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice. I posted my thanks on Twitter today, asking others to thank a vet for their service and received some very rude comments from @Ray_Peterson, the first being "Vets protect the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. They do it because it is their paid job" and followed it with "Vets are the paid company cops of the wealthy & powerful." Like I told him, he obviously never served this country and he obviously has no understanding of what the military really is. We are all aware that it is run by a corrupt government; however, we don't blame the troops, we support them. They enlisted for various reasons. Some joined because of a family tradition of service. Others join because they just want to serve their country. Some join because they know no other means out of their poor economic circumstances. Others join for the enlistment bonus, whatever it may be. But all have done one thing that many will or would never do, and that is try. They go in and do the best they can, whether they make it a career or are hurt during basic training/boot camp. They did their part to the best of their ability to serve this great nation, to no longer take for granted the freedoms most of us do not think about but when they are violated. All who serve make sacrifices. Whether it is the comfort of home, job opportunities in the civilian world, a limb, or their life, they sacrifice to make sure that each of us can go to bed at night knowing that we still can worship whatever god we want, say pretty much anything we want, including bashing and belittling those who have served.

I know that some of our rights have been infringed on. The Patriot Act is one of the worse bills ever passed, and it violates so many of our rights. However, this is NOT the doing of the soldiers, it is the government. There is a difference and obviously some people are too narrow-minded to distinguish the difference between government and the military. I can only pray that one day their eyes will be opened to see that there is a difference.

With all that, don't fuck with a vet on Veteran's Day. I'm a vet myself, I was in the Army in 1999, got multiple stress fractures in both feet and in my right knee cap. I do not go on long tangents about my service because there are so many others who have served longer and done more for this country than I could ever do. I would never take back my time in the Army, I loved almost every minute of it. The parts I don't love is a blog for another time, and probably will never happen. But even when I was in high school, and a raging anti-government, anti-war pacifist kid, I NEVER disrespected the vets. I know what the Vietnam vets went through upon coming home from a war that no one agreed with. I don't agree with Iraq and Afghanistan has gone down hill and we need to restructure, but I would NEVER bash those that fight. They do what they are told. If you bash a vet, you bash me and many of my friends. Since my feet are pretty much all better (still can't run though), if you got something to say, say it to my face... Yeah, see what happens.