And joining the military is but one way to serve your country.

Forty, I agree with you 100%. "Serving your country" is not just
signing over that blank check for your life to the government and
putting on a uniform. At one time, there was a ROFFian at a clave
once that was having a crisis of concience. He was a lawyer and
didn't know if he was doing the right thing to server his country. I
opined that as a lawyer, didn't he swear to defend the Constitution?
Same thing that guys and gals in uniform do.
Serving your country is teaching young people at a college, being an
orderly in a nursing home, inventing some new thing that helps folks
do something easier, bagging groceries, protesting injustice, building
someones new home, voting.
Serving your country boils down to caring. Caring about what happens
to your neighbors and someone in some pest hole 10,000 miles away and
then doing what you can in your own way to effect a change.
Frank Reid