re: Why are we supposed to tell service members, “thank you for your service”?

I was a freshman at UK when 9/11 happened. So I was the perfect age. At the time, A. I was partying too much, but B. I also remember thinking/feeling we'd send a crew in to take care of the terrorists and move on. Didn't think it'd be what it turned in to. I'm a conservative and didn't like when we pulled that crap with Iraq a year or two later. I didn't believe in that.

But I have numerous friends who did, a buddy I played baseball with was killed by a roadside bomb over there, and my dad served in Vietnam.

So I have a lot of respect for those guys. You sign up for it. And I sit/sat here with my thumb up my arse. That's why I say thank you to them. Not to patronize them. I'd feel the same as a lot of servicemen do..."man, I don't want to hear that shite." I get it. But I'll say thank you all the same for sacking up and doing a job that needed to be done.

If you can't watch footage of WWII or Vietnam or Korea etc and not understand why you say thank you, then you're not a human being.