That's an easy one. You don't enlist in the armed forces for a nation whose government sends you halfway around the world where the U.S. has no sovereignty. Some of the best military units in the history of this country were the ones who answered to a local militia leader instead of a Federal government in Washington. I'll include the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, Daniel Morgan's Virginia riflemen, the militia of Francis "the Swamp Fox" Morgan, and the Texas Rangers in that group. One of the defining characteristics of these groups is that most of them didn't give a damn who the colonial governor, the president, or the king was -- because they didn't answer to any of them.
This country was built by people who overthrew their own government when things got out of hand. Everything you've posted here is an inconsequential sob-story in comparison to that.
If people didn’t sign up for the US military they would be drafted. That’s how my Dad ended up on the front lines of Korea.
We wouldn’t be in places we didn’t belong if we actually obeyed the War Powers Act. WWII was the last military action where we actually declared war - lawfully, by a vote of Congress. So why haven’t we had to obey the law to declare war? Because nobody has standing to sue over the illegality of combat operations absent a declaration of war.
We have it pounded into us, over and over again, that the worst thing in the world would be to rebel against the government. We’re all supposed to accept whatever the system does. The only moral way to resist the government is through legal means, and if there aren’t any legal means then we’re just supposed to be good little people and don’t do anything rash.
It’s totally opposite what founded this country. The idea is that it’s NEVER right to fight. Literally fight. With guns.
As long as the government knows we have no will to fight, they will go as far as they can, knowing there is no real accountability, if there is no means for legal accountability to happen.
Maybe the question the nation needs to ask and answer is “WHEN is it not only OK but actually a moral imperative to fight with guns?” Maybe our failure to deal with that question has put our country in danger by making the politicians feel untouchable.