I'll be the first to say it. Just being a military veteran does not give you a license to be an asshole. As a veteran myself, I would know.
Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for veterans and the sacrifices, large and small, that we've made in our lives. But that's the key word; SACRIFICE. We willingly gave up something, and because it was entirely our choice, we cannot use our status as veterans as some sort of carte blanche to try and get away with something that would otherwise be unacceptable.
And most especially, because the sacrifices we've made are ultimately for the freedoms our nation protects, we have to respect it when people exercise those freedoms in ways we might not personally agree with. The best example of this is the Westboro Baptist Church. Anyone who hasn't lived under a rock for the past decade at least has heard of them. They're the small group of religious activists who regularly picket funerals of veterans, saying that their death punishment from God was due to our nations acceptance of homosexuality.
I can tell you right now that there isn't a single point in their message I agree with, but when I swore in and officially became a Marine, my oath was to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". That means that I didn't just risk my life, and give up my own personal freedoms, just to defend the rights of people that I like or agree with. Every time the WBC protests a funeral, their actions make me feel that the sacrifice was worth it. Because they CAN protest, they CAN have radical religious views, and in a beautiful display of cosmic irony, they OWE it in part to veterans who were the epitome of whatever they dislike.
That's the greatest part of freedom; when someone expresses it in ways that make you wish they hadn't. That's how you know that you still have freedom to begin with.
