Would it hurt you to thank a soldier or two without the baggage?

A couple of days ago, I posted about the Atheists in Foxholes parade. A commenter today let me know that he blogged on the same subject. So, being in a curious mood, I checked it out, and found(emphasis added):

"Another absurd slogan is "There are no Atheists in Foxholes." Supposedly, in the heat of battle, with death imminent, a soldier will cry out to a god even if he or she was not previously a believer. This is simply untrue, and frankly, insulting to our non-believing soldiers. In contrast to believers, atheists put their country before any god. Moreover, the notion that when one is near death -- vulnerable, helpless, scared, and weak -- one will desperately cry out to a supernatural being underscores that strong and empowered people don't need divine intervention. So isn't the crux of this slogan that belief in a god is based on fear and helpless desperation?"

I'm not so sure that many god-fearing soldiers would agree that atheists are more devoted to their country due to the virtue of not having a God in the way of their service. At least FreeThinker (that's his blog name) issued a thanks to the vets:

"Let's remember all our veterans, and the diversity of their religious beliefs -- or lack thereof."

When I remember our veterans, I just remember our veterans. I don't really care if they went to church or not. I believe that if you really appreciate the sacrifices of those who have served, religion is irrelevant. And poisoning appreciation to vets with irrelevancies and personal grievances simply overshadows the selfless with selfishness.

Update: I'm not into quoting someone's blog without credit. So I tried to trackback the post quoted above. My error log gave me:

Ping 'http://freethoughtguy.blogspot.com/2005/11/veterans-day.html' failed: HTTP error: 405 Method Not Allowed