You may not have worn the uniform for service, but you went where the uniform went and did good service anyway. There’s zero shame in that.

As to current military culture, I would ask everyone to remember that every career officer and staff nco in our military has served every day of his military career with a media and ivory tower spawned society that has demonstrated an overwhelming willingness to take any miss step or the failure of a single soldier or small group as proof that the entire “military establishment” is either criminal or incompetent.

During the ’90s, there was also an unfortunately successful campaign waged by the civilian “leadership” to feminize the military and render it down from a fighting organization to a social welfare program.

Anyone in uniform in the staff nco and officer ranks knows full well that the US military will always be engaged in hostile actions from its own homefront. Surviving that requires a degree of defensiveness and over caution that can only play out to our enemy’s benefit.