Are veterans really the "most deserving of Americans?"

[Victor_c3]

8. I would never call myself "most deserving", but I believe I'm entitled to the benefits I get

The only thing I think I deserve is an apology along with the entire population of Iraq from every politician that ever supported the war on Iraq.

My parents signed a waiver so that I could join the Army when I was 17 years old and I truly believed that I was joining a force for good. My childhood was filled with what I saw (and was told) were nothing but justified uses and applications of our military. In 1997 when I joined, I never saw us ever heading to war in Iraq. And, when I took my ROTC scholarship in 1998 (and thus committed myself to 4 years of military service effective from my graduation in 2002) bush 43 and his exploitation of September 11th was incomprehensible.

I was misused and taken advantage of by our politicians as was the rest of our military. The altruistic image I had of our military conducting operations to help the oppressed in situation like Bosnia and Kosovo (and others that we never were involved in like Rawanda, Darfur, etc...) was shattered when I went to Iraq in 2004. So yes, I feel that I deserve the benefits that I get - but I'd never call myself the most deserving. The most deserving are the Iraqi people.

My experience has been that the only people who believe that our military is the "most deserving" are those who are truly sorry for what our politicians did to our military by sending them on a war only thinly disguised as a revenge on Arab people (with a goal of doing nothing more than killing a whole lot of Arabs [which we did a great job of doing that in Iraq]). Or these are people who never actually experienced combat and have no concept of what it feels like to partake in killing.

Me personally, I hate it when I'm thanked for my military service. If anyone who thanked me knew what I did in the name of our country to the people of Iraq they'd be outright disgusted and I'd be labeled a complete piece of shit. In fact, that actually happened to me once. I was at the DMV and, for whatever reason, I decided to get a licence plate illustrating that I had a military award for valor in combat. The people around me at the counter started to probe and asked me what I did to get that award and I simply answered "I killed a whole bunch of people". I guess they were hoping for some epic story of heroism that they could waive their little flag at, but those stories never really exist. The response I got was "oh" and they quickly stepped away and got out of my face. I didn't even have to get into the details about a child that I got had the "privilege" of watching die after I found him in a field after one of our firefights or the honor I had bestowed on me when I had to fight the grieving families away as I stuffed body bags with the remains of their loved ones and my chain of command told me to not let the families have them. Nope, the feelings of disgust, shame, and horror come alive when you see exactly what the impacts of your weapon fire are on real people. Feelings of patriotism and pride after events like these are reserved only for people who were never involved.

So why do some people call veterans "the most deserving"? I'd like to think so because they are sorry for what our country did to our veterans, but I doubt it. That would suggest that they actually gave a damn about human life, which they clearly showed they don't by supporting our war on Iraq.

I'm sorry if any part of this post seemed like I was attacking anyone for anything that was said in their post. I'm in agreement with everyone else here that labeling our troops as "most deserving" and worshiping the ground they walk on is wrong.

Also, I'm sorry for the long rambling rant. War and the shame associated with it is a topic that is very real to me.