Gun rights were not the most personally painful rights to give up.
Try not being able to choose what kind of work you do, what part of the world you live in, and not being able to quit and take a better offer. Try being away from your family isolated overseas when your child is born.
Try being stationed at Andrews and being at the beck and call of the politicians so they can go to the Virgin Islands for the weekend, and then getting ^%&% because the plane breaks and they don't get their free ride back on time. Try having the Speaker of the House demand service the equivalent of the President, and tying up airplanes needed to move troops.
You are told how to wear your hair, how much you can weigh, and required to pass the physical fitness test for a 17 year old when you are a 40 year old office worker doing 60 hour weeks at the Pentagon. You put up with a very few medical personnel like the Ft Hood shooter who got a free education, and a rank higher than yours to start for pay purposes, and then listen to their constant anti-military crap.
And some servicemen die from battle wounds, plane crashes, vehicle accidents, or being shot by some kook who should have been kicked out long ago. Others watch their best friends die.
Try listening to the First Lady apologize for the US Military because "they are not our best and brightest."
Try being told that the emergency operation your wife had while you were overseas and she was back with her Mama is going to cost you $22,000 co-pay because the civilian doctor was not on the approved Tricare list.
Thousands of servicepeople volunteer and do all this every day, and call it doing their job.
Compared to most, I had really good duty for 27 years, and now I'm retired. Every day I think of those that are still on active duty.
So very true!! 21yrs of memories!!