Considering the fact that we have not fought a “hot” World War III (for which I partly credit high capacity nuclear weapons and ‘just enough’ sanity for the controllers to not launch them in anger), the various regional conflicts that have been ended before they became widespread warfare (recently including Bosnia and Libya, but over the past half-century has included Korea – nearly every day of the past 50+ years) and massive relief efforts such as the Boxing Day tsunami of ten years ago, among others, I have to say that many posters here simply have no idea of what the US military accomplishes, sometimes just by existing.
I will agree as quickly as anyone that it has often been misused, including Lebanon during Reagan’s term, the “optional” Iraq invasion / war of 2003 and others, but that’s not the fault of the military. When you vote for Big Government, you should consider that “the military” is one of the primary manifestations of big government.