Donuel, while I enjoy your graphics, I must say that your take on the veterans, and lumping them in with the rightness or wrongness of the conflict they served in demonstrates that you have no concept of which you speak. I applaud your view on war in general, and share it. But you need to re-examine your disdain for those who served, and choose to remember. Please understand the context of these comments. I do not mean to attack you, but I feel as though you oversimplify the complex recipe used to create humans, and their memories.

Much of what goes into that mix has to do with the times in which the war was fought. Obviously WWII vet's have a different take than their brothers and sisters from Korea, Vietnam, and the Gulf Wars. I would imagine the vet's from the Panamanian invasion have a different take yet. The result of the action would also play in. BUT, those feelings are entirely different from the feelings one has for comrades, fallen and survivors, that shared a life and death experience. Combat is an experience that cannot be described in any way but life altering. The death of a comrade has no parallel. Survivors guilt/elation changes a person fundamentally. Living with uncertainty for months at a time, experiencing how ones mental state changes as they go through a tour of duty, these are experiences that have no civilian counterpart. Throw this all in the mix, along with the things in ones life that made them who they are, and the times in which they live, and you get a very complex set of memories. To simply state that there must be something wrong with someone who holds onto a uniform shows a lack of depth on the subject.

Personally, I don't own a uniform or a ribbon. That whole time turned me in a different direction. But I would NEVER castigate my comrades in arms for whatever they came to out of it. Nor would I presume to understand what it is they honor by saving their mementoes. I find that those who do castigate these men and women, are folks that have never been in this situation. They are speaking from a theoretical, or self righteous position.

Want to kick the war makers? I am with you. Want to take shots at those who dehumanize the enemy in order to convince young ones to go to war? I am right there. But castigate those that went, when there is no way to know what really drove that decision? I will be your loudest critic.

Mick