Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I agree with this.* That said, I have on several occasions bought drinks for US soldiers, particularly when seeing them in Europe. I'm not sure why, it just feels like the right thing to do.

For different reasons, I always and will forever buy any paramedic a drink (assuming we are in a bar). Those dudes saved my life and made me feel calm and safe when I was bleeding out in the middle of the road.

I go to a family reunion every couple of years and the organizer, one of my cousins, always makes a point of having all the veterans stand up and get acknowledged for their service. This has always bothered me, maybe because I know too much about his politics, because of the implicit denigration of other forms of service. I have a cousin who helps run the volunteer fire department in the town where we do the reunion. One vet there was a doctor in the Army stateside for two years during Vietnam and then spent his career in a state mental hospital -- which was the bigger hardship? I have another cousin who has spent his summers fighting forest fires -- he has surely put his life at risk as much as the organizer who did his tour on a destroyer without anyone ever shooting at him. I don't object to honoring the vets at all, but exalting them while dumping on everything else the government does kinda bugs me.