Reply #13: That was the exact purpose of the original poem:

[brainshrub]

Here it is:

It is the Soldier,
not the reporter who has given us freedom of press

It is the Soldier,
not the poet who has given us freedom of speech

It is the Soldier,
not the campus organizer who gives us freedom to demonstrate

It is the Soldier who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag,
who allows the protester to burn the flag.

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The point of this poem was to equate militarism with freedom. That equation is a boldfaced lie.

All I did was turn it on it's head to expose the obvious truth: Soldiers, in and of themselves, don't do squat for freedom of press, speech or assembly. The military is a tool of the state... and how free the people are is determined by the work of activists, not soldiering.