What I keep finding amusing is the number of neoCons who love the meme, but are never willing to live with the bouncing rubber ball that they are not the citizens that they so, well, admire.
There is also the problem that if we limit the notion of 'service' to merely armed forces, the failure rate gets seriously unpleasant.
What is the hardest part is that there are so many former american armed forces personnel who still remember a time when service in the american armed forces WAS connected to the idea, and ideal, that the american armed forces were a 'citizens military' - and not merely contract murderers of a welfare state....
The cool trick is to sound like one wants the american armed forces to be percieved in some patriotic and nationalistic mode, while at the same time, still happy about the fact that it too is still a part of the whole failed socialist system, and that those who volunteered, well, they knew what they were getting into, and that it is an extreme sport, and they have no leg to stand on, if they let that leg get blown off by an IMD...
So yes, sometimes cognitive dissonance is more important if it gets the short cut in the limbic system working well enough... You know, so that folks understand the importance of the correct Knee Jerk Reaction....