I was in the Army, infantry, Viet Nam, 1970-71. During the Bush years there was a concerted effort to encourage people to thank a veteran for their "service". Today the push is to call veterans "heros".
In January of 2003 I literally woke up to my military experience. I knew little of politics and policy. I consumed vast quantities of information to develop answers to two questions: Why war? Why do we so proudly send our children to kill other children? The answers came slowly - mostly from books. Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" was an eye opener. It was closely followed by two time Medal of Honor recipient Marine Major General Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket". Many other books, DVDs, and conversations followed. The bottom line, as I see it, is that war is about money and markets. The cabal that runs this country spends a lot of our tax dollars trying to convince us that war is honorable, heroic, and the "only way" to insure "freedom".
Robert Mcnamera's film "Fog of War" showed me that the Gulf of Tonkin never happened. I met a Navy officer who was on the Maddox. He resigned his commission when he saw the lie. Thus we invaded and destroyed a country, killed four million, "lost" (physically and mentally) hundreds of thousands of our own - because some group wanted war. I also recommend the DVD "Vietnam: An American Holocaust".
Service is what the person does who fixes your car. When the word "service" is applied to the military it helps to justify violence as a method for conflict resolution. Like "defending our freedom" or "bringing democracy" the word "service" is used to lower the barriers of aggression. My motto is: If you have to hurt someone to solve a problem, you are the problem.
The military solution to conflict is death and destruction. That's not service. Call it what it is - the military.
Chicago, IL