This cartoon is now ten years old. (Click on it for the link to the original.) Since that time, I've become a partially-disabled veteran, and I've developed a different perspective on it.
First, there's a difference between petulance and protest. With his feet up on the desk, Kevin here is being a jerk. But I don't think the Marine staff sergeant went to the school that day to shame students, and certainly not publicly. We generally don't do that.
Second, I don't like being -- metaphorically -- wheeled in as a prop for someone else's argument. Notice that the staff sergeant's not saying a single thing in this frame. It doesn't matter who does it, where the the right or the left, I resent people taking away my agency by "speaking on my behalf."
Respect is nice, but it shouldn't be weaponized into a litmus test for patriotism.
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