You can wish you were dead all you want. But don’t pretend there’s anything heroic about it. All the bumper stickers and parades and ‘thank a veteran for your freedom’ bullshit—all the pedestalizing. All the movies. All that isn’t for you guys who went. It’s for the next time. How else do you get children in Oklahoma City or Fallujah to kill people they’ve never met? Convince them they’ll be heroes.”
