"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

Samuel Johnson wrote those words well over two centuries ago, and for American men of a certain age and background they still ring true.

Arguably, they are especially true for some of us whose fathers and uncles (and in some cases mothers and aunts) served in World War II or Korea, and who, ourselves, never wore a uniform.

Except for those with the courage required of true pacifists, many of whom serve in the most dangerous jobs in the military, it also makes the most conscientious of the rest of us eternally susceptible to what can only be described as a variant of inescapable embarrassment.

We who have never served are forever doomed to an unresolved and ultimately unresolvable doubt.

We are forever in debt to those who served at times and in places we never had to go.

And thanks to them, we will never really know if we had what it took to do what they did, in those times, and in those places in which all too many served, and all too many died.

Genuine courage requires genuine fear . . . and thanks to those who served in our place, most of us will never really be afraid, at least not on those terms.

That said, and those debts admitted, it seems reasonable to ask of those we have freely and openly deemed our betters some small measure of forbearance, and to say to the outrageously self-righteous among them: enough.

For those of us who have been privileged to know and love and admire soldiers, the scorn of those who choose to take advantage of their honored status, and especially the scorn of those who have served in what Bill Mauldin once described as places "too far forward to wear ties and too far back to get shot" is particularly painful and galling.

The disdain of those who never fired a shot, or never served under fire is particularly inappropriate, even contemptible when directed at others.

It is the self-righteousness of an unassailable bully . . . and unworthy of those who truly serve and served.

Erasmus knew from sad experience that "War is delightful to those who have no experience of it." He also knew they know themselves and are all too easily known, even by those they hold in contempt.