(Two very differently toned Memorial Day user diaries from readers who have served. This is the second, originally posted elsewhere. I’m promoting both to encourage discussion, or at least thoughtfulness. It’s worth remembering that, although politicians like to speak of veterans as a monolithic group (that support their particular agenda, of course), they are anything but. I encourage readers to check out both diaries before commenting. – promoted by odum)

So it’s Memorial Day, which means that the US is awash with mostly obligatory tributes to military personnel.

I hate this shit.

I didn’t fight for your freedoms.  In the six years I was in, I never once defended your right to vote, or to carry a gun, or to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure (that one doesn’t really apply anymore, anyway), or any of the other things you enjoy as a citizen of this country.  I just didn’t.  Neither did anyone who went to Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Vietnam.  It’s all bullshit.  It’s a fucking lie that we tell ourselves and each other so that we don’t have to think about why we send young men and women to serve, suffer, and die for old men’s vainglorious ideas and profit margins.

I passed through Burlington, WI on Saturday to visit their annual chocolate festival.  Who could say no to that, right?  Well, while there (this being Wisconsin), I got myself a beer.  To do so, you had to put up with the shitty metal cover band in the beer tent.  There’s a 45-year-old lead singer acting a fool–pouring beer on his own goddamned head, making dumb-ass sexist remarks, saying stupid shit about his teen-aged daughter, etc.  Since that wasn’t reprehensible enough, he then proceeded to thank all the veterans in the crowd, specifically pointing out one man whose–well, I’ll just quote this asshole.

I wanna thank all of our veterans for what they do for us.  Every guy in the band, our fathers were all in the military.  My dad was in Korea!  This guy right here in front–his son is in Iraq right now.  He’s over there FIGHTIN’ FOR OUR RIGHT TO PARTY!

I wanted to rush the stage and strangle that fuck with a microphone cord.

Read the rest of this post at First Draft.