Cultural concern for veterans coming home and being treated poorly, or being unable to readjust to civilian life, definitely predates the Vietnam war.
Consider "The Best Years of Our Lives"[0] from 1946, set after WW2.
https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/rivas-rodriguez-texas-mexic...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/felix-longoria-affa...
The Felix Longoria affair in which a Mexican-Texan veteran was denied who died in the war was denied burial by the local funeral. The American G.I. Forum an association of mexican american vets helped organize a protest and sent a letter asking help from Senator (and future president) LBJ, who arranged to have him buried in Arlington and initially publically supported the veteran but later ducked and covered from the conservative backlash. The G.I. Forum would become a powerful civil rights organization over the years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Woodard
Isaac was an African American World War II veteran who was beaten while still in uniform (hours after an honorable discharge) until he was blinded (because he had talked back to the bus driver when the bus driver refused to let him use the bathroom. the driver called the cops on him). This was a major scandal that helped inform the nation and especially President Truman about the evils of Jim Crow but he couldn't pass civil rights laws past the senate. All he was able to do was desegregate the army and federal goverment by executive order.
"Johnny I hardly knew ye" was first published in 1867 and echoes similar concerns.
So, the US has many private charities and organizations to help veterans. It seems silly. If there's one thing that a country so supposedly patriotic and morally superior ("exceptional") could do to show it, then it should be a 'no brainer' to try and live up to that and to take care of people who (now voluntarily signed up) to risk their lives for their country. This is more akin to North Korea's version--except the DPRK really is too poor to take care of them.
Whatever you believe about military forces and usage on a societal level we should look after them at least as well as everyone else.
Kinda like how some people say "I'll pray for you" - rather than, you know, actually -doing- something to help...
It is therefore quite rational to be able honestly to say you will pray for someone -- even if you are atheist -- if the goal is to maximally signal support and goodwill (which you believe will benefit the "recipient" in some small but possibly positive nonzero way, as well as signaling virtue from the "sender".)
Frankly, that is one major reason I have instituted prayer in my decidedly atheist household.
No - I am not overlooking these people. I know very well that they exist, and I often find myself wondering about their thinking process. I say this also as a former person of faith (Wicca), as I often wonder about my own at the time, my own today, and the what/why of the changeover. I have yet to be able to answer that satisfactorily for myself.
> To them, praying is an important act, and praying for you is likely something they will literally do because they think it will help.
I understand that, but it also goes counter to published research which indicates that those who are prayed for do worse than those who aren't (I believe the study was in regards to patients recovering in a hospital, and that they were told whether or not they were being prayed for). The difference in rates of recovery were very minor (IIRC, less than 1 percent) - and other studies have shown the opposite. Ultimately, everything indicates that it is no better than random chance. I just wonder why people, despite being presented such evidence, choose fantasy over reality.
> Granted, there are many people who say it as a platitude but don't actually do it.
Those who do this, I hold in high contempt - above and beyond those who believe it will actually help. Because the true faithful are showing compassion toward the less fortunate (regardless of the actual outcome), while those saying it as a platitude are just doing so to gain some kind of "social points", likely knowing fully that their words mean nothing.
Separating the two classes, though, can be difficult or impossible, unfortunately...
Try some of the definitions of facism from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism some may meet your needs.
I agree there's an idealized view but it's easy to complain when one is not involved
Here's one flagged article about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9089903
I've kind of come around to the idea that asking some questions about the person's experience, and letting them tell some of their favorite stories is usually a better way of showing appreciation, even if it isn't openly stated. Everyone likes to be heard, and it's a rare veteran that doesn't have a bag of moving / funny stories to tell about being in the military, so everyone gets something out of it.
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to conscripted soldiers who didn't have a choice.
These days its hard to say anyone signs up for the military in the major democracies without realising what they where signing up for.
It's "volunteer" in the sense that you technically make the choice. But for a lot of kids signing up those choices are sleeping on the couch in the trailer park, a prison cell or an Army cot.
I recall a situation from around the early 1990s when there was a proposal to spend about $2 billion on public education. The reaction from lawmakers was like this: Where the heck are we going to get all that money from?
That was just $2 billion! Funding Operation Desert Storm was no big deal.
The British armed forces recruit children from the age of 16. I don't agree that 15/16 year olds in their final year of compulsory education know what they are signing up for when the army recruiters come to their school.
There are campaigns to change this, but as far as I know they haven't achieved much support.
For example: http://battlefieldcasualties.co.uk (the powerful video on this site is also relevant to the wider points being discussed upthread about the treatment of ex-military people and how it compares to the fetishisation of the military in other contexts)
Just to provide a contrarian viewpoint -- strong disdain for the military is one of the criteria for a weak state rife with degeneracy and malignancy.
The military serves an important function in society and personally I think it deserves far more recognition than profit-seeking hounds with low moral standards (ie: the scum referenced in the article).
Any evidence for this?
Uhm, no. For example, Liechtenstein, Palau, and Vatican City do not have a military and they do not seem to be "rife with degeneracy and malignacy" - well perhaps Vatican City, but not the other two.
Please don't introduce inflammatory language like this unnecessarily into a thread. It's quite off-topic for the submission.
Edited to expand and clarify.
Nothing inflammatory about pointing out something a respected academic said.
If you think its inflammatory read the full list and compare it to contemporary democratic states.
Laurence-W-Britt seems to be an author. I can't find him so I can't say for certain he's not a doctor but I don't think he is.
Also your link is from rense (a white supremacist/conspiracy site), it doesn't seem to have been the origin(originally from a humanist magazine) and may have been republished without consent but it does undercut your point.
A lot of it I think is an over reaction to the way returning troops from vietnam where treated.
In either case, strong reverence for the military is one of the criteria for a fascist state.
EDIT: http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm
Since someone called what I said inflammatory I posted where I read the military reverence thing.