Nothing says thank you for your sacrifice than gutting veteran's benefits.
The military is nothing more than a prop.
Military service, especially during war, RUINS servicemen. It DESTROYS them mentally, physically, or both.
Mom told me that for decades after WWII dad would never sleep through the night. One time she tried to talk to him during one of his night time "patrols" and he started shouting at her in Japanese. When she told him what he said that he was ordering her to drop her weapon.
He used to tell us the fun stories from the war... volunteering to unload transports in order to raid the officers bags for contraband (booze), stealing officers jeeps and driving them into the ocean, playing baseball with the USO. He never talked too much about the bad things except once when he was talking about island hopping and they came across a village where there were several Japanese soldiers begging to be rescued whose arms and legs were broken. They asked the villagers what was going on with them and were told they were going to eat them. They just left the japanese there and moved on.
So they're going to be paying him until he is 42.
The age 26 is key to baseball players. It usually is the time they get their first UFA contract. It is also the age where their skills begin the unstoppable decline.