41bear Wrote:You don't know me and I don't know you but when anyone says/writes that they "Hate" anything and then spouts off about personal responsibility including treatment of their fellow man I then have to question that person's investment in such things. As for seeing the world, and paying for it on your own dime, my dime was in the 5+ years served though I did miss India, Russia and China. Thus my dime was my responsibility to this great country I was born in and clearly way more valuable to me, and the country, than any monetary output by a non military citizen on a pleasure trip.
You were right - we don't know each other. But me "hating" something, by default, has no correlation to my level of investment. Aim higher. Conversely, the things we hate the most are often the things that we've invested the most in, that occupied far too much of our life. You can question whatever you like. Although if you were really asking, and not just making that statement, those questions would produce something fruitful. If we're really being honest, you're just saying your piece.
The difference with myself - and I don't speak for you or others, but I strongly suspect, based on experience - is that I could look past something about you that I personally loathe, and accept it as part of your person or character. I could even still be friends with a person whom I vehemently disagree with. ("Christians" have a parallel concept - "hate the sin, love the sinner") It's all about how one conducts themselves. If you make it a point, every time I'm around you, to pester me with what's important to you, while allowing me no quarter, then we're not going to be good. Disagree with me all day, ok, so long as we're still having a conversation, and you haven't just decided that you're always right. Being able to operate in mixed company is the hallmark of *truly* intelligent people, and that's where I prefer to operate. Having open door conversations, are also the way to find truth and workable solutions on complex subjects - when such a thing is important to people. And believe me, I understand that to most people it's not. Most of us just want things the same, in perpetuity, regardless of how little sense it may make, in the face of other, unavoidable changes. It's the basic recipe for conflict.
I may not be a "patriot" - in the sense that I don't have a blind loyalty, and I refuse to agree out of a false sense of responsibility - but I do my part in the machine that makes up the collective. We're not all meant to be soldiers, nor doctors, nor businessmen, nor ditch diggers. You served in the military. Great. That doesn't mean that you have the whole picture. I don't have it either. My point with travel, was that I want to understand my world as it is - not how I'm told to believe that it is. As Americans, who live inside broad borders, we are EXTREMELY myopic. I've been to tens of countries on 4 continents. You wear your uniform as a source of pride, I wear my personal accomplishments as a sense of pride. My #1 accomplishment - I am SELF MADE, having been born into poor white trash, in the most central parts of a vast continent. So you'll excuse me when I hold people to a high standard.
I'm not here to get into any arguments with people about what certain things mean to them. If your military service meant that much to you, that's a settled matter, right there. We're all on a different path in life. If that's your purpose, and your realization, so be it. Mine isn't. And mine is, obviously, far more important to ME. So with that being said, no incongruent comparisons will be forthcoming.