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Also being critical of US veterans or current servicemen.

As a retired US veteran, I encourage people to actively be critical of us! Most of us aren't heroes just for signing up. Most veterans didn't do anything heroic during their service; heck, I was an IT technician. I spent 20 years mostly sitting at a desk, working on/with computers. Any civilian could do that.

The hero worship has gotten out of hand. And I get it; the American Public blamed the Vietnam War on the soldiers who served, and we treated them awful, even though it was the govt who started the war and conscripted a lot of service members against their will. It was a bad time.

But since the Iraq War kicked off, it's like US society decided to make amends by worshipping the ground military members walk on. And it was really awkward for us. We really didn't deserve the praise.

Another thing to note: people act like the US military is a very conservative-leaning organization. And to an extent, they're right. The Republican Party has latched onto the military and heaped tons of praise and adulation on us, and a lot of conservative people sign up to show their nationalism isn't just words. (Those guys mostly join the Army or Marines)

But the truth is, the Republican Party only does that to win votes. In public they praise us, but in private, they're constantly cutting our funding, programs, healthcare, pay and benefits, etc. If it weren't for the Democratic Party, the military would be borderline slave jobs. Which is about all the Republican Party see us as; we're just minions to enforce their rules and laws. According to their attempts to gut our military, we don't deserve to live like humans!

In the years before I retired (~3 years ago), I noticed that the military was leaning pretty heavily to the left. There were still some die-hard nationalists who worshipped the Republican Party and turned a blind eye to their policies that neutered or removed our benefits. But a majority of the people I worked with around the globe seemed to be happier to serve under a Democrat president.

Sorry, I apparently had a lot of say about this topic. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that veterans are people. Don't treat them like shit, but also don't hero-worship. There are very few of us who actually deserve that title. If you see someone going out in public covered in military swag or bragging about their service... they're probably a piece of shit who did absolutely nothing in the service. They're riding on the high of public adulation and probably shouldn't be given another glance.

Speaking of... one last quick story. Throughout my 20 years of service, we always had a name we would default to as the "bad example" when doing things. "Sergeant Snuffy pulled this lever and fucked up the processing line; Airman Snuffy mouthed off to the Command Sergeant and got his ass detained; Private Snuffy left his tools out and caused everyone to stay 3 hours late for inventory."

This "Snuffy" example turns out to be based on a real person, Staff Sergeant Maynard Smith, a WWII Medal of Honor recipient! This is the highest award you can earn in the military, and he earned it in the Air Force, which is notorious for rarely handing that out to anyone!

Regardless, Sergeant Smith was a complete tool. Disliked by his crew and always getting into trouble with his leadership. Heck, he was serving on KP Duty (kitchen duties) as punishment for being late to a meeting when he was awarded his Medal of Honor. His crew nicknamed him "Snuffy Smith" in honor of the bumbling idiot character in the comic strip "Barney Google and Snuffy Smith." And despite earning our highest award, his legacy, which is still remembered to this day, is for being a total fuck-up.