Men and Women in Uniform

I have heard many politicians and even our incumbent president refer to our troops on the battlefield using that 'characterization'.

I think it is rather a broad stroke of the language to define those that are risking life and limb to guarantee our freedoms by refering to them as those wearing a uniform.

This creates some odd questions -

1. Are the restaurant workers and chef, trash collectors, policemen and women, boy scouts and girl scouts as well as scores of other uniform wearing crowd to be identified by a different terminology?

2. Are those uniforms somehow less relevant?

3. What about those people that are part of our armed forces or secret operations but do not wear any uniform or for that matter even dress in another country's garb to distract attention?

4. Are the people in the army (or other military ops) less important when they are out of uniform as opposed to when they are in - many examples of that may be when they go to sleep; when they retire from their job; when they don't have one to wear?

5. What is the obsession with the uniforms anyway? I mean other than Hollywood most of the fights take place by using a computer these days - so what is going on with all this laundry I say? It is more a battle of the minds and cultures than anything to do with uniforms.

Just some random thoughts on this mild summer day.

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