Unfortunately, the conclusion I reached was that the soldier's comments in defense of the military were not just dumb, they were "really dumb." I also said that this soldier was "an embarrassment to everyone in the military" and that "if these are the kind of people that are supposedly defending our freedoms, then we are in trouble." Soldiers like this, I pointed out, "are the ones who will gladly make widows and orphans on demand for the state—in the name of fighting terrorism and defending our freedoms, of course."

A few weeks ago I received a note from a "cousin" of the soldier from a few years ago. He had only recently come across my prior critique of the other soldier.

Unless I am forgetting something, this makes only the second time in about three years that I have received a critical e-mail from a current member of the U.S. military. Note that I said "a critical e-mail." I have received many e-mails from active duty U.S. military personnel during the time between these two soldiers, but none of them critical. These soldiers generally speak about discovering my articles, LewRockwell.com, or Ron Paul and wanting to get out of the military as soon as they can. Many say that they try to hide the fact that they are in the military so they don't have to endure people thanking them for their service or for defending our freedoms. Some have expressed interest in declaring that they are conscientious objectors. None of them defend the actions or the institution of the U.S. military, foreign wars, or the U.S. empire of troops and bases that is a blight on the world. In fact, as I mentioned in my aforementioned article: "Most of the e-mails I receive from veterans and active-duty military personnel are favorable to my anti-war, anti-empire viewpoint." It is usually conservatives and Republicans who have never been in the military who chastise me for daring to dethrone the god of war they worship.

Here in its entirety is the recent note I received from the second soldier I mentioned. Like before, I will not subject this soldier to ridicule that would certainly overflow his inbox if I gave out his name and e-mail address.

Vance,

I must to take some offense to the article you posted back in 2013 with reasonable bias. I am a member of the US military however, that doesn't mean I autonomously support the political agenda of our current leaders and simply find your article  rude. I don't necessarily find it rude because you claim that we are not hero's or even that you would put us in the box of with cowards. I am mostly insulted that you would dehumanize us as though we belong to an inferior genome of human species namely a less intelligent one.

We all do our jobs just like a telephone operator at a credit agency, would you say that every single member of that organization is a blood thirsty debt collector bent on the sole destruction of the human on the other end's spirit? Is their job honorable ? Absolutely not, but is it a necessary evil in order for them to provide for their family and take care of themselves without using the "system"? Quite possibly so, and just as they do their job we Marines/soldiers/sailors do ours and not with out suffering.

I feel the role of our military acts as the evil debt collecting organization or rather the debt resistor and attacking the soldier for his line of work is not so different than blaming and abusing the slave for the wickedness of his master. For we as Americans as a whole are essentially slaves of our government, not those in office, but what we have done as a nation to our world. No, what we have allowed our leaders to do to this world.  If us "dumb" soldiers just stopped doing our jobs we would be tried by the government as criminals perhaps even deserters. If our military ceased to exist we could very well suffer total collapse.

So to discredit us as cowardice is essentially oxymoronic because we do brave bullets and bombs and go to war for your freedoms, whether or not you realize that we protect the American populace from itself, it's own ignorance and differing it's almost inevitable collapse.