Since the "support our troops" memes seem to be making the rounds again: 

I believe it is my fundamental duty as a citizen to see that our men and women are never sent into harm's way unless it's absolutely necessary.  This means for the defense of our borders, dire external national security interests, and the protection of those who cannot protect themselves, all in cooperation with our allies worldwide.

Sometimes this means I am critical of our government, or our people, because I believe we've made bad decisions and want to correct them or avoid making them in the future.  

Unfortunately, in our age of carnie-huckster politics, a substantial number of people have been sufficiently confused to believe that questioning one's government is unpatriotic. 

This is frustrating to me, because that kind of logic...well, it isn't logical.  It makes no sense in the context of a free country.  While it may be true in other places that one's love of country is measured in once talents as a sycophant, it is one of the most fundamentally un-American notions we've ever developed, and it constitutes an outrageous insult to the people who have fought and died to preserve our freedom, including the freedom to dissent. 

They didn't do it so we could roll over and give that freedom up every time we get a little scared or confused. 

They didn't do it so we could browbeat each other into artificial displays of "patriotism" is a macabre game of "keeping up with the Cheneys," a big penis-measuring contest where the penis is constructed of saccharine public declarations of national pride backed with apathy, ignorance, avarice, and daily lives that act directly against the best interests of our country, from blowing off paid time at work playing Farmville or schtupping the secretary to falling into stupid, shallow diversions like marching against gay marriage or finding new ways to keep ignorant poor people ignorant and poor.  Like continuing to refuse to implement a single-payer health care system, improved by the addition of a touch of capitalism and good old American ingenuity.  Like continuing to use cheap manipulative peer-pressure tactics to browbeat our fellow citizens into marching to our tune.

We used to look at the systems of other nations and say "we can do it better." 

Now we look at them and find excuses to not bother doing it at all.

We are the United States of America, Leader of The Free World, The Only Superpower On The Planet.  What makes us worth fighting for is the freedom to dissent, to attend or not attend whatever church we choose, to speak our minds to the fullest of our ability - which implies USING our minds to the fullest of our ability.

When those freedoms are suppressed, by government action or public pressure or refusing to use our minds to the fullest of our ability, we have turned our back on our principles.

When we buy in to hate rhetoric, and warmongering for profit, and politicians and political ideologies that set us one against the other, we spit in the face of every man and woman who has ever worn the uniform of this great nation.

So I agree with the memes.  We should respect our troops. 

The best way you can do that is to think for yourself, come to your own conclusions, and work as hard as you can to ensure they're never sent into harm's way without good reason.