On point 3, while I don't disagree entirely, I bear no il will towards thep people I fought against. In fact I sometimes have more respect for enemy soldiers than towads our chcken hawk politicians. Which is virtually all of them; male, females, repub, or dem.
Other points:

1. Most of us hate chicken hawks.I mean hate, not mildly dislike
2. It is hard to fit back in society. Really, really hard. Esecially for combat veterans, not only because of adjustmnt issues, but also because of prejudice against us.

every time I read one of your essays. Never thought about border security that way, and I really appreciate that you phrased in a way that made sense to me but also made me look at it differently.

And as for #2--I've never felt comfortable saying that phrase, it always felt phony, so I'm glad to know it feels that way to the recipients as well. Selfish, I guess, but I've never been able to bring myself to say it and always felt guilty. I never agreed with the wars and thanking someone for their service felt like thanking them for killing people, which seemed entirely wrong-headed and hypocritical, but I've never blamed the soldiers for doing their jobs--I admire them for that, I just think, thanks to stupid, greedy warhawks (looking at you, Clinton), they have a shitty job to do. Maybe that's what I'll tell the next vet I wind up talking to...

Thanks for saying it.

I especially can't stand politicians who never served a day in the military throwing around World War II terms like "carpet bombing" in a vain attempt to hide their ignorance. How many times will our armed forces be ordered to carry out dumb missions by clueless officials? Nothing is impossible for the man (or woman) who doesn't have to do it himself (herself).

This goes for both major political parties. Remember when Madeleine Albright sarcastically asked Colin Powell, "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" Our job is to defend the USA and our close allies, when attacked. "Team America World Police" was intended as satire.

I know it wasn't until I was on active duty that I realized we had non-citizens serving in the U.S. Army. Well, if that's not something that ought to be a path to citizenship I don't what is.

As for border security, I like to quote General George S. Patton, Jr. on the "folly of fixed fortifications." Trump's Great Wall is a fantasy - a 2,000 mile wall along the Mexican border would be impossible to build, and the 600-mile fence we have now is next to worthless. It's a "solution" in search of a problem, too: net migration from Mexico has been negative for the last decade.

Also, an estimated 40% of undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. crossed the border legally and overstayed their visas.

The Pentagon budget, including overseas contingency operations, exceeds the military spending of all other nations in the world combined, including our allies. Meanwhile countries that live under the U.S. security umbrella are free to spend money in economically beneficial ways.

>>Vets HATE that fucking phrase. We hear it all the time and it feels hollow and fake.

1. Veterans HATE War and warmongers.

Fully supported and agreed. To the chorus of "Support The Troops" I hear altogether too often in my home town of Colorado Springs, Colorado, my answer is: "Support Our Troops Right: Bring them all home NOW!

I never served, being a reject. I was rejected for a perfectly bonafide, reasonable cause: I have NO base athletic talent. Specifically, when I was of joining age, I could not run a continuous mile regardless of time allowed -- and the recruiting standards of the day said that I had to be able to run a mile inside of 5:30 (five minutes 30 seconds), IIRC. Again, a reasonable cause for rejection. So veterans do for me things I cannot do for myself. But warmongers piss me off to no limit, as few if any of them have ever served, but they find it perfectly acceptable to put our young men and women in harm's way for causes in which we rightly have no horse in those races.

2. Please don't tell us "Thank You For Your Service". Vets HATE that fucking phrase. We hear it all the time and it feels hollow and fake.

Here, I must ask you and your ilk for a touch of forbearance. While the MSM has indeed rendered this into tasteless pablum, for most of us who offer that to veterans, it isn't. Again, see the notes on (1.) above. In my specific case, I am thanking them for doing something for me, that I needed done, which I was incapable of doing for myself. I also say "thank you" to those who "step and fetch" for me now that I'm crippled by arthritis, too. In addition there's another aspect to this: we are telling you that we DO. NOT. hold you responsible, or to blame, etc., for the abuses to which your service to our common country was subjected by the aforementioned warmongering politicians.

That some of us do not have the gift of better spontaneous phraseology should not be held against us; hence my request for forbearance. Most of us who break out of our shyness shells to say that actually mean everything I said we do above.

Of course, in my own personal case, I back it up where I can -- by resisting our tendencies to endless war and resisting the continuous militarization of our localities and our culture.

3. We don't trust the people who were shooting at us. Vietnam vets have a hard time with people from South East Asia. Iraq and Afghanistan Vets have a hard time with Moslems. This is a fact.

This one has bitten me personally. My entire ancestry (that I know of) was loyal to the United States of America in that War the United States Army, Navy, and Marines fought from 1861 to 1865. And we still don't trust certain secesh slavemongering traitors Southerners, to this very day. (Example: Senator Turtle McConnell from Kentucky.) We criticize Neil Young for pulling his punches:

[video:https://youtu.be/kVRxdPWV3RM width:560 height:315]

As for numbers 4 and 5, I do tend to agree with your view of the problem with insecure borders. But before we get all head-up about building walls and other such shit, how about addressing the root cause of virtually all illegal immigration into this country to begin with? To wit: Trash NAFTA! Mexican corn grower farmers and farmhands should not have to price-compete with subsidized American agrimegabusiness in their own country; neither should American industrial workers have to compete with maquiladora slave laborers in theirs. The only beneficiary of NAFTA is Big Finance Capital; everyone else gets royally fucked. Get the fuck rid of NAFTA, CAFTA, etc., and re-erect reasonable protectionism on both sides of the border, and the pressure on those borders will shrink greatly -- making them much easier and cheaper to secure.

And military budgets: We do need to shrink the military -- profiteers capitalists first! Not only do military contractors need to be put on a diet, it also needs to be a permanent doctrine that the Department of "Defense" never, ever provides the entire economy of a locality, and any existing situations must be decommissioned as soon as humanly possible. Again, the only beneficiary of current spending levels and policy is Big Finance Capital.

In fine, we need to honor our veterans -- by taking the care of the ones we have, at least as well as we promised to; and also, by not creating so many of them in the first place heading forward!

the others to lesser a extent.
#5 - It always bothered me how when the end of the fiscal year (Oct) comes you spend like a drunken sailor. If you don't use up your fuel (or supplies or anything) for the year, you get less allocated next year. There is an emergency you prepare for in flight and it involves emergency jettisoning of fuel. So at the end of the fiscal year, if our squadron had extra fuel (you always do because you budget it that way so you have it if you need it) then we would waste it including taking off with full tanks and then jettisoning huge amounts (thousands of pounds) over the Atlantic until the aircraft weight was inside the landing envelope. Not only was this a small example of huge waste, but it shows the lack of environmental regulations and controls outside the continental US. That always bothered me that the military has to operate under the use it or lose it principle.

Right now, the military/national security/intelligence complex runs Americans anywhere from 1.2 - 1.4 trillion in total per year, mostly from the discretionary budget. It is absolutely astounding and what is it for? Where are my enemies? I'm an American, a Veteran, where are my enemies? I don't have any enemies, except the mofos in power who try to create enemies for me.

I can honestly say my time in the Navy didn't color my views on U.S. imperialism, it's what I learned later that tuned me in. I wasn't a combat vet, just spent time on a submarine. So I didn't see people killed, try to kill people or have people try to kill me, at least not literally.

But when I learned the real truth behind WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, the Iraq war and the War OF Terror, that's when I understood what the enemy represents. The enemy is absolutely those in power who have created this Orwellian atmosphere on earth when humans should be evolving to a higher plane.

It's all built on lies, enemies are created for the powerful to kill people, including the U.S. military service men and women, to gain more power, control and wealth.

Having served during a cool period in the Cold War (no pun intended), my stationing in Germany was cushy compared to actual combat duty. But yeah cut the contracts down, if they can't prove the toys are actually practical, The Huge Trucks and F-35 come to mind, they get the shit-can job. Make VA more accessible and friendly to veterans, shift some of that money from contractors to making the VA less hostile.

Borders, while I do not agree with the crazy wall idea, sensors and patrols can do a lot to help secure borders. You can't stop all folks coming over illegally as there are many tricks to slip in. But they want in for reasons that have nothing to do with harming America directly or on purpose, small % want to do harm, and if we become aware of them, then it rests on the FBI/DHS and other agencies to actually grab them and not allow the harm to happen.

I agree on the phrase "Thank you for your service" it does ring hollow. Making the VA and other safety nets for us to access less a circus act to get into would b e a big help for starters, why it takes hiring lawyers to get help is beyond me and seems counter-productive!

If we go non-imperialist, then our military, as many others have become, is simply a self defense force. An interesting concept, but maintaining a massive war machine is eating up so much of our national budget, can we actually afford to stay on a war footing for decades on end again? It nearly collapsed us during the Cold War, it is likely to sink us now.