When I was young and brash and full of reproductive fluid, blue eyed, blond and hung like a horse, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. Because……I was a man.

A man stands up forthright. A man protects the innocent. A man defends the weak. A man upholds the just. It was good men that made the world safe and strong men together could vanquishes all evil. That’s just the way it was. Being young we knew that we were not the decision makers, but rather the decision followers. Our worth would be measured in our ability and success to obediently fulfill our leader’s wishes. We were strengthened and tested and given a beautiful uniform of which each part had meaning and history and all that was good a and noble loved us. Consequently we fought and we suffered and we died. We came home and were not very popular anymore. We did not wear our uniforms and nobody gave a damn what we thought. We were told that we were wrong for following our leaders because our leaders were wrong. We were just chumps and fools. Worthless. Unloved. Resented. So we began to act strangely. What we did in service made no sense so we had no sense for joining in the first place. We tried to get people to understand but they simply did not and would not. So we just shut up We had our secrets and our memories inside, where they could not escape.

As time passed, when we saw things that our government was doing regarding war, we got weird. We would express both battle camaraderie one day and pacifism the next. Our pride in accomplishment, service, and, worth, contrasted our failure, guilt, and, worthlessness. We displayed amazing courage and stamina against the enemy, but we bombed children, shot civilians, and razed villages. We went to Vietnam undefeatable, but returned defeated, and, it was ok, but not really.

Then the epiphany: War is really really bad, (enphisis on the “really“)….but sometimes necessary for survival of all the things you hold dear and that’s just the way it is.

So when we see young people in uniform today, enduring, adapting, trying to be something special, but not exactly knowing what that will end up being, always looking way to young and naïve and absolutely alone…we want to grab them and talk to them and pal around with them and console them and help them and tell them thanks in a far more meaningful way than just saying it. Because we still have all of this inside us and we know presumably what they feel, but not really.

So we just say thanks as they avoid our goofy gobs., go about their way as we go ours.

Has 'support the troops' become trite? Perhaps.
But I pray that that phrase has not come to mean “We support war”. War is ugly and truly “hell” on Earth. I wish it upon no one. There are times where the cause of war is just, but it does not make it any less of a hell on earth. The difference between a just war and an unjust war is the morale of the men. When you fight for a cause you believe to be just, you can take a bit more hell. In an unjust war, it overcomes you, and your cause will fail.

Unlike Mr. Gonzalez, I do not believe the war in Afghanistan to be “illegal”, “immoral”, or “unjust”. Iraq? Perhaps. But we won the one war that divided us. We are losing the one war that was supported by most. I personally blame President Bush and our current Congress for that. We dropped the ball in Afghanistan. After Vietnam, that was to NEVER happen again. It's not too late to do some good in Afghanistan. If we do not have a clear mission, we must honor the men and women there and pull them out immediately. Otherwise, go for the victory – and stop sending troops anywhere for a while. I'm darned tired of war, and the nation is war-weary.

May God bless all my comrades who have served, and may He protect those currently in harms way.

Bill Moyers had an interesting 3 generation perspective that was interesting, humbling and less about the glory………..here's the link….<http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11062009/profile.html&gt;