We call ours "chest candy".

Remember also that the military of this democracy is anything but.
We who serve our country, be it the USA, the UK or wherever, don't have the choice to say I'm going to fight here but not here. You can take consciencious objector status but you have to do so prior to joining. You can't just say tomorrow that you're unwilling to fight so and so. The only time we can buck orders is when we can say that it is an illegal order.

I chose to serve my country because I believe I owe my country alot. I didn't join for the pay (check the difference between a Haliburton employee in Iraq ($120K) for a year and a normal grunt (E-5/sargeant) (approx. $28K) for the same year). The benefits are nice but are not the huge gimmes that the public thinks they are. The retirement at 20 years is 50% of your base pay (in actuallity its approx. 25% of your usual paycheck because you lose uniform, food allowance and housing allowance. Why don't I get out if it's not so good? Because there's a job to be done and I don't see anyone else lining up to do it!

We don't ask to be revered. We don't ask to be honored. All we ask is to be treated the same as any other citizen (which half the time we aren't. There are doctors who will take medicare that will not accept tricare which is what our medical coverage is called).
There aren't alot of other reasons to serve than patriotism. You aren't going to get rich. It's not really worth getting shot at to get a mere pittance towards a college degree (with costs as high as they are the GI bill is lagging far behind). And we are not "cold blooded killers" who want to destroy everything and everyone, even if we were allowed to do so which we are not.

I do think that those that came before and guaranteed the rights which we all cherish should at least be remembered once in awhile.