Wow, this thread keeps going lower and lower. By the sounds of it, I guess I shouldn't have bothered putting my hand up in the air 6+ years ago to swear an oath to defend the Constitution (that's right kids, not Bush, not Obama, but the Constitution of the United States of America). Yup, clearly would've been better off getting a business degree and chilling on Wall Street like a few others in my HS class.

I stand by my post from earlier today that this small gesture of appreciation was a good move and, ultimately, beneficial to CO's bottom line. Frankly, both sides in here ought to have left politics at the door and debated this move solely on the basis of how it affects a. CO b. the CO customer base, including the joes who got comped.

For that matter, daggone it, it would've been nice for certain participants in this discussion to put themselves in joe's shoes and really consider what this gesture meant to those joes. When I left the ranks to enter the commissioning pipeline, one of my NCOs pointed out that it was a good thing that I had gotten to see how the other half lived. Maybe it'd be useful for those who want to drag in politics, ideals, right/left discourse, whatever, to step back and try to really imagine what it's like to be a joe. I really could care less about one's politics, but believe me, if you want to try to twist all that around into some unfounded beef with joe, that sure as heck fires me up. Alright, off of my soapbox for tonight, hopefully...