Interesting, EB. I turn 47 this March also.
I, too, have realized the things you mentioned, and more to it. I got a lot of it early. My mother was a realist, and very intelligent (a certified genius, in fact). She never told me life was fair, that really it was not. She did not hide the truth, no matter how ugly it was. So got a lot of this early on, and learned much of the rest quickly, as I looked at the world in perhaps a different way.
Eagle, I was 4 when you came home. I studied 'Nam a lot as a teenager, since it was what I grew up hearing about. I always thought that the vets coming home were wrongly treated.
Like Backpacker, I have told many that I was thankful for their service. I have always meant it. Am I happy for where they went or what they had to do? Many times not. But I am thankful that they stepped forward to serve as the defenders of their and my country. Those of you who served joined in good faith, and went where you were told in that same good faith. I have never blamed the soldiers for whatever happened wherever it happened. They go where they are told and do the best of their ability to get the job done and stay alive while doing it.
For that I am thankful.
If soldiers are sent to somewhere they don't need to be, and/or to do something we don't need to do, that is someone else's responsibility. It is the responsibility of those who send them.
I have told anybody I have heard badmouthing our troops for being somewhere they didn't think we should be that they are looking in the wrong direction. Our troops don't look for war. They, above all else, know just what war is, so they don't want to go. But they understand that sometimes people must do things they don't want for a greater purpose, and they volunteer to be those people. So if someone said in front of me that our troops "don't belong there", then I tell them they need to look somewhere other than at the troops themselves. They need to look at those who sent them.
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