"K4YZ" wrote

Yet Burger King managers, newspaper sellers,
grocery clerks, etc, get killed every day doing
their jobs, often defending those places against
an armed foe.

What sanctimonious drivel. I think I need a barf bag.

Jim owes no one an apology here, Hans.

Jim owed one, and gave one. I'd firmly shake his hand and
say "thanks" in person.

Not when you consider one of those who DID serve USED
the deaths of men who DID die in battle well before he
was even out of High School to "polish his brass" in
this very same forum.

I don't know WTF is "brass polishing", but suffice to say this. I'm
a first-generation American. I don't have any ancestors who fought
at Yorktown or Bunker Hill or Gettysburg or Tripoli or Alamo or
San Juan Hill. But I consider every American patriot who ever wore
the uniform of these United States, all the way back to the irregulars
at Bunker Hill, to be my shipmate/comrade in arms. Likewise
the sailor/soldiers/airmen/marines who serve today and in the
future. If that association is "brass polishing", then so be it.

The bottom line is that while we depend on the Armed
Forces to keep our borders safe and the "bad guys" at
bay, all those other "served in other ways" people are
no less integral to creating and maintaining our way of life.

If you say so, Steve. On Memorial Day, make a generous donation to the "American
Bridge-Painters-Who-Fell-Off-Their-Scaffold Orphans Fund"

de Hans, K0HB