Beer and a Veteran

From a reader who had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of a veteran in love with himself:

I now know a little bit how you feel whenever you write about the hallowed U.S. military.  I write a column about beer — beer! — once a week and yesterday made the mistake of joking that this weekend we should honor those who serve us beer. Although I agree with every word you write about the military, the column is about beer so I leave politics out of it.

Well, some self-described vet almost immediately commented about how disrespectful, etc. I was. I shrugged it off. This morning lo and behold I received hate mail from this guy calling me names and telling me he has contacted the publisher of my piece and complained about my “satirical garbage” and so on and so forth. Instead of using my email address, which is at the bottom of everything I write, he apparently Googled me, found my old business website, and used the contact form on there so he could keep his identity secret and provide no email address where I might respond. Classy.

All this over a column about beer. That didn’t even mention veterans or the war dead at all. Which I guess is the problem because these brave heroes fighting for our freedom are so emotionally fragile that you had better constantly be saluting their favorite institution or they will melt down. You know, the institution that’s responsible for all those war dead we are supposed to honor in the first place. (At least the American ones; never mind anybody on the receiving end of all this “heroism.”)

I can only imagine the sorts of horrible, horrible junk that must fill your inbox constantly. Thanks for what YOU do; I know you are at least reaching those who are receptive to the truth.

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7:02 pm on May 24, 2013