[Dethfang]

Originally Posted by dak

Example...Body Armor that keeps our troops alive...

A private company produces it, do they not contribute to their country?

How about the engineer who never even fired a gun because he was too busy learning material science and ballistics physics so he could design working body armor?

How about the school teacher who devoted his life to education and taught several generations of students so one could eventually become that engineer?

How about the guy who jumped through all the hoops to become a certified architect and built the schools that engineer was taught in.

How about the guy who harvested, processed and transported the resources to build that school?

How about the farmer who fed all those people?

What makes the only "worthy and contributing" members of society the ones who put bullets in people for a living? The private sector engineers, scientists and professionals don't need to serve as grunts EVER because their business as usually job skills give back more to the country than what some infantryman guarding a street corner will ever provide. It's an egregious disservice to the stability of the nation to deny the professional base of this country access to citizen rights if they are unwilling to potentially squander their lives and thus a valuable intellectual resources to the nation in some affair where a high school dropout would suffice and probably excel. What do you think Dougie Howser represented in Starship Troopers? Remember the test scores Rico received? You are "serving" and risk getting blown up on a daily basis, that doesn't make you a patriot. You could be serving your country much better if you had hit the books harder, it was your choice not to shape yourself into something more to offer than obedient flesh. The guys working back at home are the force multiplier that separates you from your cold war era weapon wielding, improvised explosive using, malnourished, intel-less adversaries.

Take away the "rest of us" and those who serve in a direct military sense amount to little more than a bunch of nobodies in tattered rags fighting with sticks for nothing.

Hot damn, that's how you make a rebuttal boys...