Today's Veterans Are Proud of their Service

Here Andy Bacevich, who grows more isolationist with each passing year, seem nonplussed that veterans are not jumping on the anti-war bandwagon. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-seductive-allure-of-wars-were-not-winning/2014/04/11/4e5b9d70-c011-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html

Bacevich typically is worth reading.  He lost a son in Iraq, which makes this personal for him, and who can blame him? But I'll offer a few reasons for why veterans are not alienated.  To me, this is not mysterious:

1) They believed the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were just wars.  The cause was right.  That doesn't excuse the mistakes in execution.

2) They knew that, under Bush at least, Washington was committed to the cause.  They did not see the same from Obama.  (See Gates's book on Obama's lack of moral commitment to the Afghanistan surge that he approved.)

3)  They volunteered for service.  They weren't draftees like in Vietnam.  Just spoke to an Afghanistan veteran this week.  A Texan of Hispanic origin deeply proud to have served, and who benefited personally from the experience.