I came back with a wholly different perspective: I saw the price we paid and that it was just us paying it. To see people occupying their lives over trivialities seems to be a filthy waste of our lives. The Constitution allows the free exercise of our wills, more or less, but responsibility should hold us to higher values, higher callings of our lives. Instead - we have idiots whiling away their existence with video games or drugs or pornography.
Professional sports aren't quite that low on the totem pole but they are pretty much a waste of oxygen. I have never cared much for how somebody else does something, unless it's a skill I need to learn. The whole idea of wasting my limited remaining time watching someone throwing a ball is incomprehensible. I have better things to do.
My sport is long-distance rifle competition. As we say in the Marine Corps, "It is a sad fact but true that no enemy soldier has ever been killed by a basketball, a baseball, a football, a golf ball or a bowling ball: that has always been the task of a skilled rifleman".
Funny you should say that - I just received a grant to buy my BSA Troop 5 rifles. They are also, every one, members of the Traditional Bowhunters of Washington.
They have given us a franchise to provide meals for their archery events. The Troop makes money for programs, learns how to be bowyers and fletchers, and they get to do all the courses for free.
The US military allows for all the diverse pursuits we pursue. Some of those things may indeed be a waste in every respect, but all I see is a 1000 flowers all in the pursuit of happiness. All under the aegis we provide, or have provided.
I’m a scoutmaster, and that’s my hobby I guess. The next generation better stand for something, or we may all fall together.
Thanks for your service, and I hope you find peace.