adding

Having just posted a two-parter on how much I enjoyed being in a town with a significant military presence, the "of course" addition has to be that I think our use of our military is politically and often morally insane, and that military personnel -- including me, pretty recently -- serve an empire that needs to learn a hard lesson regarding restraint and the rights of other people to live their lives without our violent interference. If you'd like to believe that it's contradictory or hypocritical or otherwise ridiculous to personally enjoy the company of people in the military while thinking they engage in behavior with which I sharply disagree, you're probably right to think I'm taking contradictory positions, and so be it. But there are also a good number of people in the military who are having this discussion about empire in some form or another, and who joined the military with the honorable intention of genuinely defending their country and their community. I'd like to bring them home, keep them home, and buy them a beer or ten.

I understand there are people who don't agree, but my personal experience is that the military is full of smart and morally sophisticated people, along with some people who are neither.

ADDED LATER:

For example....