"We don't ask to be revered. We don't ask to be honored."

Well, Big Mick and a whole lotta other folks, are DEMANDING it.

Listen, you can't have this both ways. I always make the distinction of who serves voluntarily, and who was conscripted. I don't hold conscripts to the same standards I hold the volunteer military to, for the obvious reasons. The former has no choice, the latter does.

I fully understand that once you are in the military, you do not have a choice as to where you are sent to serve. But everyone has the ability to decide, before enlisting, whether they are willing to go to war under whatever circumstances the government and military demand, including illegal military actions, and unjust wars.

Anyone who serves in a volunteer military, I presume will defend any military actions, whether just or unjust, legal or illegal. Just like anyone else, they don't get my respect unless they earn it, and deserve it. That doesn't include every person who ever signed up. Not by a long shot.

My constitutional and civil rights are not granted by the US military. Those rights do not spring from soldiers serving in US wars and military actions. My rights and liberties have, however, been protected and preserved, not by the armed forces engaging in imperialist wars in our name, but by civil libertarians and committed citizens who are willing to stand up and be counted here at home, when the tide was running against them, and it really mattered that their voices be heard and their actions seen by all. Like it did during Vietnam, and like it does in these times, concerning Iraq, the wars on terrorism, drugs, the poor, women's rights, etc etc