Let's talk about the real reasons America loves it's troops...

The troops fight a war no wealthy conservative would have been willing to fight themselves. They suck it up so we don't have to increase taxes to pay for the war we started without thinking. They deal with less food whenever Halliburton needs a bargaining tool to stop Pentagon investigations into just where the hell the money is going. They stay longer then promised so no one has to set any actual plans. They work without armor so other corporate friends of Rumsfeld can make the war profitable. They come home in 'transfer tubes' so no American will have to realize that those tubes are just renamed body bags. They lose limbs and are horribly maimed while the media calls them simply 'wounded'. They are fed lies of nobility and democracy then sent to secure the oil and pipelines first for America's economy. They are made to act out Bush torture policy and then left to take the blame when cameras come into play. They are called back into action no matter what the fine print on their contract says so we don't have to send our own kids into the meat-grinder by way of a military draft. They are run ragged and to the breaking point while their families are left behind to fend off scam artists promising life insurance and easy loans. They are victims of unexploded munitions that America didn't, and to this day, still, has no interest in cleaning up and keeping out of the wrong hands. They are the barrier between proper questioning of this whole bloody affair and propaganda mixed with rhetoric. They pretend to eat a fake turkey dinner with the worst president in US history. They face desperate obstacles in Iraq, and later at home when they find medical and social treatment lacking in funds. They are thrown into the ugly realities of war without the proper training and then made into scapegoats as the rest of the nation refuses to realize just what the hell war is and why it should have been avoided.

In short, the soldiers pay for our mistakes in our place - and we love them for it.

So... support them: Go buy your soldiers a yellow ribbon magnet so you won't have to question why they would need other financial support in the first place. Watch a Budweiser commercial to convince yourself that you paid your debt of gratitude to them by enjoying that 30 second clip. Regurgitate the Bush administration's kaleidoscope of changing rational for starting the war to feel like you were fighting with those dying soldiers. Get angry at everyone who questions the bloodshed to fool yourself into believing that you're protecting soldier moral. Take credit for social changes in the MIddle East as if that region had not been under constant change before. Celebrate democracy as the very terrorist groups we were told we had to defeat - take political office in the newly corrupted governments.

Most importantly, convince yourselves that there was no better way - because it would just suck if you were the fool and the soldiers were actually paying your butcher's bill.

Welcome them home - to the world you've created for them.