> I'm curious if you would say the same things to a Dutch military soldier who was only serving his or her own country as they were asked to do.

Count on it.

But being sucked into Iraq was the bigger error.

And hopefully they will take a minute to explain to you that the reason you are free to pursue your software business is because people like them have committed to the business of keeping you and your country safe.

NL has been pretty safe for the last 70 years, anybody you'd like to thank you better get on with it.

The major reason NL has been so safe is because the EEG and later the EU came into being, not because of any action by enlisted military. The NATO 'an attack on one is an attack on all' combined with the nukes of France and the UK are the bigger part of the balance there, with some help from the US, where there arguably is room to point out that this was mostly to serve US interests rather than the interests of Europe, any kind of fuck-up there would have likely turned the EU into a smoldering pile of ashes.

NL has very little to be proud of when it comes to the deployment of the military, both historically and in the present.