Mike Banzet, a 22 year Air Force veteran, decided to retire as a major. He explains in a letter to the Daily Inter Lake, his Northwest Montana home paper, that he finally concluded that a lot of Americans were just not worth the risks and sacrifices of military service and he was tired of being made into a sucker.

[M]y career had been a representation of the promise of this country. Starting out on the lowest rung of the rank ladder as an F-4G Wild Weasel crew chief, continuing on F-16s and the F-117A Stealth fighter in Desert Storm, then a small part of Desert Fox as a nuclear Maintenance Officer and finally a pilot that took part in numerous deployments in Southern Watch, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. I finished up an awesome year on the ground in Iraq, and was selected to receive a coveted “Definitely Promote,” assuring me of promotion to lieutenant colonel. They don’t pass out many of those. My dreams were right in front of me. All I had to do was grab them. And then I retired. Why?

Atlas Shrugged.

Read the whole thing.