“Service” is a funny old word, especially when we’re not referring to waiters. When socialists talk about services, we normally mean the everyday stuff we all need like health care, education, and garbage collection. Yet when we are called on to “thank some-one for their service,” it’s always a particular kind of staff — those who’ve fought in wars. “Service personnel” are treated like a separate class, as if they should seek reward not in better wages or benefits, but in deferential compliments.

When Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015, the media’s first line of attack was to accuse him of trampling on veterans. For the head of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, standing in respectful silence at a Remembrance Day ceremony wasn’t enough. Just like his 1980s predecessor Michael Foot (accused of wearing too tacky a coat at a similar parade), veteran antiwar activist Corbyn was damned for failing to join in the military pomp and pageantry — even the poppy on his lapel was deemed “too small.”

For official veterans’ charities and mainstream pundits, “supporting our troops” often sounds a lot like celebrating the military as an institution, and its record at war. But we shouldn’t be blackmailed by a narrative that presents “service personnel” as somehow standing apart from the rest of us. You wouldn’t do Amazon workers much good just by insisting what a great guy Jeff Bezos is. Nor are soldiers, veterans, and their families’ interests identical with those of their commanders, or their job itself.