Anonymous
@jamesmitchner, I wish I had an answer about how to fix it and as you I reach the conclusion that a total reboot is needed and soon. A part of me still hope that we can avoid the cost of a complete reset. Maybe, just maybe, if more veterans would tell their story, the real one as you just told us, we could change things. Maybe some young men and women would not enlist. Maybe some active duty people would say “No sir, your order goes against the oath I took.”
When antiwar speech come from people who have no military experience it is way too often shut down as unpatriotic, communist, enemy’s talking head. It would be much harder to do that to a decorated vet, an amputee, or the surviving spouse and children of a soldier. Would finally tell people that war is not patriotic and that a true patriot is a person who stands against his corrupted government, not the person who supinely serves it.