If a militia of military vets, or mostly military vets is formed it would be dangerous as hell. Dangerous to whom just depends on which people this militia is formed against. To anyone who's read
Lt. Col. David Grossman's work, the answer to this question of a 'more dangerous militia' is obvious. To understand the complete and total retardation the words John Amato, or his proxy, spewed within his article, one must simply understand the mindset and capabilities of a modern combat soldier, where this mindset and capabilities came from, and why a trained vet would choose to put these attributes to use against his trainers.
If Amato, or the author of this article, were to read Grossman, he would discover that modern military indoctrination and training has one primary goal. That goal is to strip the recipient from his abhorrence to taking life. Grossman calls this the shooter to non-shooter ratio. As late as the Korean war, most combat soldiers simply would not shoot at their enemy directly. The average soldier, combat trained for that day and age, simply would not take the life of another human being. When one looks at American Civil war records, it's almost obvious. Two platoons of fifty men each would line up to shoot at each other at 50 yards, the technology of the rifled musket allowed accurate fire to hundreds of yards. Yet the conflict of 50 men to 50 men took several dozen volleys to resolve. Given the technology, the range, and assuming every man were a robot who would fire directly upon one another, the average platoon sized conflict would take three volleys to resolve. According to Grossman, the shooter to non-shooter ratio of WWI, WWII, and even back to the Napoleonic wars was 15%. Korea was 60% and Vietnam up until today is 95%. What changed? Was it morality? Was it people? Did people suddenly stop have an abhorrence against taking human life? Was it the training and indoctrination that changed? The latter answer is correct.
In other words, the U.S. Federal Government's training of it's own soldiers (sailors, airmen and Marines (especially), etc.) is what strips these combatants of their abhorrence to killing. U.S. Military indoctrination and training can take a youth from any neck of these United States and teach them to be a shooter. Federal training regiments turn people into killers. Not necessarily cold-hearted, and certainly not remorseless, but U.S. military indoctrination does make a man
capable of killing.
The next logical question is, "How is this controlled?" If you take a man, and strip away his natural abhorrence to killing, like a sociopath, how do you then make a tool of that man? The answer is you teach him right from wrong. Military training and indoctrination might be chock full of exercises which strip away a man's normal abhorrence to killing, but at the same time it teaches a man when to kill, and when not to. This process is called disassociation. Modern military professionals are, in fact, trained killers. However, for the protection of the state, and the people, they are taught strict codes of conduct. Due to the nature and diversity of modern service men, these codes of conduct cannot be summarized down to a simple cheat sheet. This is reason why modern military training still includes classes and classes on
lawful orders, honor, integrity, ethics and morality. It it is very hard to control a force, such as a man stripped of all natural avoidance of combat, without strengthening the real sense of right from wrong that man has grown up with.
Now we a have a columnist who is concerned because the Federal Government created men who are devoid of any abhorrence to killing, yet have moral and ethical standards which they will fight, and likely take life in the cause of.
In short, The Federal State created and trained men willing to take the life another in support of their duty, mission, friends, and justification as it was seen at the time. Now, this so-called columnist is worried about these very same men becoming an enemy of the State based on moral grounds? Maybe this columnist should re-examine his moral grounds before he makes enemies.
Perhaps you are forgetting the American Civil War wherein nearly half of the U.S. Military and a considerable populace from the Officer's Corp's defected.
You have no idea.
In the mean time, why don't you not worry about which authority the troops are saluting, and appeal more to the sense of whom they should be saluting. Treating veterans as if they were somone's pet to be re-trained generally isn't a good idea. We don't like to be told that we like saluting authority, because we don't, unless said authority is a good officer.