There’s a huge swath of people who served after or because of 9/11 and the patriotism was on full display every time someone died and came home. The streets were lined with American Flags. There were protests at cemeteries by the hateful Westboro Church. SCOTUS decisions. There were videos made by the scores of reuniting military personnel with families.
Unlike the wars in previous years where there had been a draft, this was done by a volunteer military. Less than one percent of the population of the United States to be exact and all of these brave men and women went on to do or die.
But the ones who didn’t go, the ones who let others go for them, became green with envy at the adulation that was being heaped on men and women. So, they went out and bought their guns to feel special. To feel worthy. To feel like they too were patriotic and they too deserved to be in the club without ever really doing anything.
See, they want the outfits, and the toys, and fear/ respect that comes along with it – but like any other grifters out there, they don’t want to the work, the discipline, the sacrifices that have to be made. So they pretend. They steal or attempt to steal valor by grabbing rifles and standing guard against supposed tyranny – or ideological differences, really. Wanting nothing more than a confrontation with the mythical big government baddies waiting to strip them of their rights.
When, because of that lack of training and discipline and sacrifice, they would shit their pants should someone, anyone, call their bluff and give them exactly what they wanted. When people of all races, colors, gender identities, and sexes have served while they sat at home and watched the goings-on on television, and voted against people’s rights claiming that they were somehow inferior, or less than, these people, these different people whom they hated, worked to ensure that their life wasn’t in danger.
But these people can’t handle that. So they continue to try and be what they couldn’t bring themselves to be in the first place. Heroes.
Even today when everyone can be a hero simply by staying home so that healthcare workers aren’t overrun and hospital equipment isn’t depleted.
Even still – the cowards grab their toys and their gear and head out to be nothing much more than vectors for an illness that will kill a lot of them because their ego couldn’t handle being told what to do.
They never would have made it in Bootcamp.
They shouldn’t be feared. They should be the subject of endless ridicule and scorn.