I understand exactly what you wrote. You were being your typical nit picking, self absorbed person who thinks you are always the smartest person in the room even though it has been proven time and time again that you are not.
Memorial Day is a time to remember every soldier who lost their life while serving in our armed forces. That means every war including the war of 1812.
Nothing JJ said was wrong and there was no reason to make the post you did other then to be a Dick.
It was not nit-picking, but instead addressed the very core of what I was responding to. I never assumed my comments would be hard to understand, even if my comments were directly at odds with a conventional wisdom divorced from actual thought, and as such did not think the comments in any way suggested I was more intelligent than anyone. I truly did not anticipate you so completely missing the point, or why I was making it. (That Sportster missed it was not surprising.)
Nothing either JJ or I posted addressed the purpose of Memorial Day or who was to be remembered or why.
JJ's entire post consisted of 8 words, the first "BECAUSE" being something of an umbrella for the 7 word, unpunctuated sentence which followed: "you are here because they were they," with the "they" referenced presumably being men and women in the armed forces. If that interpretation is accurate, then his comment was the conventional wisdom about the military, and it is flatly and completely wrong. To the extent that it is accurate regarding the 1800's AFTER the War of 1812, it really is not accurate in the way intended. That kind of line generally is intended to suggest that the military has been essential in preserving our liberties (that has NEVER been the case), or our independence, or defended us against foreign invasion.... and in the 1800's that is was unquestionably not the case. Now, the military DID play a significant role in us being where we are -- not by actually defending us from foreign invasion, but by killing off and forcing onto reservations the native Americans who had occupied the land for centuries.... that just is not what most folks are thinking about or talking about when they make the kind of comment JJ did.
Even since 1900 we have never really faced anything remotely resembling a viable threat of invasion and occupation by a foreign power. Since 1900, our military has simply NOT protected our borders from anyone, or repelled invasion, or defended the homeland... or made two whits of difference in whether you or I were going to be here.
Instead, since the early 1900's the military has repeatedly served our national interests around the world, doing quite well whatever task assigned to them, often putting their own lives at risk to preserve, or even initially provide, the freedom or liberty of others. This is actually MORE praiseworthy than the sacrifice or service of someone joining in or serving in the military to protect their own nation, since the former involves a higher level of altruism and the the latter to a large extent involves service and sacrifice to also save or preserve the the life or lifestyle or freedoms of the soldier him or herself.
So, in short, everything about JJ's comment, and everything about the conventional wisdom leading to it, was wrong.