(06-12-2023, 03:03 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote:

(06-04-2023, 09:30 AM)mikesez Wrote: I have no idea what you're talking about.  I have literally never met a person who said "I don't support our troops" or "I don't support our vets."
I've met many people who didn't want our troops involved in certain places at certain times, and unstable people always accuse them of not "supporting the troops" but of course they do support the troops.  And the vets.

I have. My ex husband and I were good friends with a group of folks back in 2005 until he went sideways in 2009 (midlife crisis and PTSD are not a good combination). About 2/3 of this group were what we know now as progressives and they never, ever wanted to acknowledge we were both veterans. They preferred to 'forget' we served our country. Its not like we talked about it on the regular but from time to time the subject of OIF/OEF came up and we'd comment on our experience or POV or whatever and they did not want to hear it. 

They also had no respect for our military even on a basic level. They never said it directly to us but in general conversation they had nothing good to say. 

I remember a protest I went to in Five Points in '05 or '06 where there were pro war folks on one side of the street and anti war on the other. I had a sign that simply said I Support Our Troops and walked around in both groups. If the anti folks said something to me I said I support our troops but not the war. They're people with families doing their jobs. Some said they could respect that but someone actually did shove me off the sidewalk. When I turned around to say something they all moved away quickly. I didn't pursue them because I knew it could turn ugly and I could go to jail. 

There really are folks out there who absolutely do not support our military and they're likely the same ones who want to defund law enforcement.

I got together with some high school friends around that time somewhere in Mandarin, and one of them, a UF student who had just come out as gay, started bragging about how sometimes he'd be out late and wander around the UF parking garages to steal as many "support our troops" magnet ribbons as he could.  We told him that was dumb and he insisted it wasn't about "support the troops," he really thought all of those people with car magnets were hypocrites because, to him, the best way to support the troops was to end the war.  No one really bought that argument, but he did insist that he did support the troops.  I never heard from him again.  Not sure he ever had a straight hangout ever again in his life.

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