Excellent piece, veterans are often used as political pawns.
They're people, they're often profoundly traumatized, they deserve to be taken care of after what they've been through.
However, they're not heroes to be worshipped. Thanks for highlighting how the "support our troops" slogan is constructed to shutdown meaningful discourse and to maintain a simplistic binary view of the world.

There's nothing heroic about participating in illegal unjustified perpetual wars with no end in sight. Civilians and troops alike are killed maimed and scarred for life in wars where nobody remembers why they're fighting in the first place.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were based on lies. Saddam Hussein had no affiliation with Al Queda (CIA trained Mujahideen), there were no WMDs and an entire country was torn apart in this obvious lie. Likewise, the Taliban did not orchestrate 9/11 ("we do not negotiate with terrorists" - yet after 18yrs of pointless war that's exactly what they'll do), heroin production has skyrocketed while Osama Bin Laden was discovered and murdered in neighbouring Pakistan (protected by the ISI) and the body was supposedly dumped at sea back in 2011... "Mission Accomplished". So, the supposed mastermind of 9/11 was supposedly killed 8 years ago but the USA/NATO coalition is still there... the longest war in US history continues... and is never questioned...

Incredible.

There's some great insights in this piece, I hope people take the time to ponder the significance of the truth you speak.