Smitty the Ungrateful

Yesterday at work Smittygirl met someone who was full of bluster about military service, and insisted that anyone who left the service before their commitment was up was… well, I don't know what terminology he might have used but at any rate he thought such people were bad people. Insofar as I am trying to do precisely that, Smittygirl was understandably a bit annoyed.

I was thinking about this today at work (hard to avoid, really). And I considered that there are going to be people out there who'll always say I left before I'd served my time, I cheated the service, and so forth and so on. And then I thought about the fact that in my opinion a contract works both ways and since I'm no longer doing the job for which I signed the contract, I don't see the thing as valid in the first place. But would people like Smittygirl's client understand that? Probably not.

And then I thought, do I need to try to convince people like that of my position? Nah. After all, such people are also very likely die-hard conservative republican Bush voters, and I don't agree with people like that on almost anything. Do I need to try to sway them? Nah. I don't care. I'm learning not to wrap my ego up in my beliefs (something most people need to learn), and the truth is, if there are people in the world who think I'm a bad person for trying to get out from under my service commitment (which, I might add, is assuredly much longer than the commitments such people ever might have signed themselves), let them think that. I don't need to be loved by everyone, and if someone wants to believe a war veteran with six years' service is a bad person for not giving another six… er, well, who precisely is going to pay them any mind? Certainly not me.