I think a lot of it in the US comes from the (realistic or not) impression many people have of the Vietnam era that the military was despised by the general public and soldiers were spit on at the airport coming home, called baby killers and treated like shit, after coming home from a shitty war and situation to begin with.CrystalShadow said:Then again I'v never understood this fetishistic idolisation of military forces. You're supposed to support them no matter what, treat them like heroes even if it's quite obvious they really aren't, and all kinds of other stuff or else you're a bad person? Why?
It's absurd to treat something with that degree of blind, unconditional respect, no matter what it is...
There's also the fact that the US government does tend to promise service members a lot and often to fail to deliver on promised benefits, especially with the state the VA has been in for a LONG time.