Thank you for your service?

Ah, Veterans Day. The national holiday when we salute the mercenaries who police the world!

Veterans Day is a farce.

There's nothing worse than being reminded by holier-than-thou types that we should tell veterans how much we appreciate their service today. "It means so much to the veterans," these people will tell you, and most others will listen, because, man, we owe veterans a serious debt! THEY PROTECT OUR COUNTRY WHILE PUTTING THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE!

Once upon a time, fawning over veterans probably made sense. If your father fought in the Civil War, for instance, that guy saw some fucked up shit and was in a war that truly CHANGED things (kind of). That guy deserved at least one holiday per year, and yet men in those days were true men — they didn't want a goddamn holiday for doing what was right.

These days, going into the military is supporting the massive military-industrial complex in America, signing up to kill brown people in the Middle East, and, more than anything, a calculated decision that you can put up with some shit from the military in order to get your education paid for and some nice benefits on the way and down the road.

There is nothing noble about being in today's military. If you enter the military, you are one of three things:

1. A mercenary.
2. An idiot who had no other options.
3. A sorely misguided young person with nationalistic ideals and dreams of waving the American flag on a mountaintop after you killed the entirety of ISIS with your bare hands.

And yet, we are subjected to this kind of awful thinking when it comes to saluting veterans: 5 ways to honor veterans beyond Veterans Day.

I mean, COME ON. If you are a veteran, you signed up to be in the military. You were not forced into it. I will not honor veterans anymore than I expect anyone to honor me for having a white collar job. We all have jobs, and we all make choices based on what's best for us. Joining the military is not a selfless act. Joining the military in 2014 is accepting a job. You weigh the pros and cons and you either do it, or you don't.

The worst part of all of it, of course, is that you don't dare say anything bad about the idea of honoring veterans, because otherwise you are an asshole in the eyes of 99 percent of the country. Even bleeding heart liberals would be appalled at the very notion someone would say FUCK VETERANS DAY.

But, seriously: FUCK VETERANS DAY.