Tom gives us the answer: served for 20+ years, chose to make sacrifices to make war.
Whether or not Tom cares about people who die is irrelevant. People die. Fact of life. This Tom knows well.
We all die someday; Tom knows God knows who dies what day is up to God, not Tom.
(Thank God Tom appears to know Tom is not God.)
Someone else is assigned the duty to have care and concern for collateral damage.
Collateral damage is not Tom's concern until it concerns his mission.
Tom follows orders. No questions asked. Chain of command, classified intelligence, ra ra ra.
Tom knows sometimes individual sacrifices must be made to mitigate risk of losing the entire platoon, unit, corps, country, continent.
Tom will never see it any other way. This is his mission, whether or not he is COINTELPRO is irrelevant.
Tom has made it his mission. Tom will follow Tom's orders to complete Tom's mission.
Tom spends his entire life on one mission or the next, but always on a mission. Tom on his mission is the life of Tom. Without Tom the mission would not live.
Practical or not, from Tom's point of view utopian is the notion that there would be no fighting between the people of nations if the people refused to fight instead of just blindly following orders.
Tom has yet to explain how and why we should be proud of a military that failed so miserably at its basic responsibility = defending the country he proudly serves.
How does Tom resolve the risk to his family while serving his country, when the so inept that it so utterly failed the basic mission = defend the country?
Lastly, Tom should know that until they prove who did it, in court, tried and found guilty, whatever it takes - until then, no one is innocent or exonerated and everyone should want the investigation of 9/11 to put it behind us.
If there is nothing to hide, they should hand out shovels. In the meantime, the people of this country will grow further and further apart.
Truth means nothing, when everything is a lie, all that remains are shades of transparency.
