Retro Rant

I'm still not planning to bring all my old rants over here, but this one was one of my favorites when I wrote it. Looking back, it could use some tweaking, but I'm not in the Navy anymore, so I'll let it stand as is, in all its pissed-off goodness:

OK, so I have a MySpace account as well as this one, but I don't blog there. There is a link to my LJ there, but only one or two people from there actually come over to read it that I know of.
At any rate, they have these bulletins and I suppose it's a pretty cool way to get out information to a lot of people, as individuals repost and so on. For the third time since I've gotten the account, I've witnessed some of my friends posting "support the troops" stuff. I see at least 5 support the troops magnets on peoples' cars every time I drive somewhere around here. Speaking of cars, let me just go ahead and list the magnets/stickers that piss me off the most (that I usually see together all on one car): Support the Troops, God Bless the Troops, and God Bless America--all or most with American flag motifs. They're usually also accompanied by Bush/Cheney stickers, but I digress--this rant isn't about them.
So back to what I was saying... all this "support the troops" stuff really annoys me. I am in the military myself, and apart from the magnets people buy from the USO, I'd like to know just how this supports the troops. Now, I wasn't there for, but understand the difference between this show of solidarity and what happened with Vietnam veterans, but seriously... it seems to me that it's all people who aren't in the military patting themselves on the backs for saying, "Thank you," when all they really need to do is say, "Thank you." And not with a pathetic sticker or a bulletin post or a blog. Write to people on deployment; send care packages; cheer when people return from deployments; give to the USO.
I just don't get the "I support the troops" thing when there's no action to back it up. Sorry, but walking all the way around your car to put the sticker on it or taking the time to cut and paste some lame poem doesn't count as action in my book. Oh, and neither does praying for them. Sorry, but that "God bless the troops" shit pisses me off even more--I didn't ask for, nor do I need some stranger's concept of omnipotent blessings. And while I fully understand that you mean nothing but good things by it, why don't you think outside your own little box for once and realize that there are MUCH more universal ways to say/do/mean good things that don't have anything to do with religion? And whether or not you think it's harmless, it's an insult to my intelligence when you say there are no atheists in foxholes. Now, how is insulting my intelligence "supporting" me exactly? Yes me... I AM the troops. I'm in the military, so I think I have every right to this particular rant. I've been on a deployment, and I am serving my country. No one can call me unpatriotic for not putting an American flag sticker on my car like the masses.
To me, it's the same as people who feel the need to advertise their religion on bumper stickers. It's your religion; it should be a personal, spiritual thing... being proud of it is one thing, but certain stickers are quite "holier than thou" about it, and that's the same to me as magnets that "support the troops." Don't put a magnet on your car telling me you're proud of something; go out and fucking DO something! Until you do, you're only supporting the guy in China who made the magnet.