Teribus, when you say "What they volunteered to do was serve in the armed forces to protect their country which is presumably your country too Mrrzy" you can't then say that "They did not volunteer to go to war." Bush was on and on about using the military to fight and win wars. Volunteering for the armed forces is the exact equivalent of volunteering to go to war.
You then add that "If you believe in the Christian faith Mrrzy, and if you are a citizen of the United States of America you can count yourself amongst the more fortunate human beings on this planet" - now, leaving aside that no, I'm not a christian (now, wasn't I nice, those of you who know me?) but certainly having been born a US citizen is incredibly, incredibly lucky, and I am profoundly happy that it happened to me, and profoundly admiring of those who've come here by choice, like my Mom. She can be proud to be an American: she earned it. I am just delighted to be American, but I can't be *proud* of it.

I *am* proud of the ideal that America was meant to be, which has been so horribly perverted by the precedence given to rights over responsibilities in the America that has been but, with audacity, might soon no longer be. I am not proud of what my government was doing when the Bushes were in charge. And they made it very clear that war was what the military was for.

Katlaughing, the whole meaning of that second amendment is that you don't *need* a standing army if your citizenry is armed, although they did say in that amendment that they should also be in trained militia, which kinda gets forgotten. That way if we're *invaded* the invaders don't get anywhere as the entire nation is suddenly not only in the armed forces, but already deployed. This was especially unfair to those who signed up for the National Guard and still ended up getting sent overseas, now they were really screwed over, I agree.

So, yes, back to the troops. I am sorry for them. I think they are owed, by the people who sent them to war, the best medical care on the planet for ever and ever and ever. I admire those that survive whole of mind if not of body. But I didn't ask them to go, I didn't ask them to sign up, and I pity them to the depths of my heart.

There are much better ways to be prepared to defend your country from attack than to have a standing army.

Thanks, Little Hawk, for noticing how nice I was being about that other thing! But unfortunately, and this is a separate subject than Should I thank the troops (it *was* a mistake to use Support in the thread title), but the US armed forces have become stiflingly and overtly christian, with discrimination culminating in the fragging of that atheist (whose name I don't recall now but which reminded me of Emmet Till's name, maybe Tillman? The US football player who gave up the game to go fight the taliban, remember him?) and the persecution of members of other religions (I was not at all surprised by the Fort Hood shootings, I'd been waiting for their deliberate *crusading* to drive some poor islamic soldier around the bend), bloody what else could they do to make things worse, I wonder.
But that *is* an aside from Should I Thank The Troops. How to you reach the joeclones to get something like a thread title changed, wiggle my wand at them?