My parents, Shirley and Kenn Morgan, on the back steps of our apartment in Saugerties, NY, March 1969. The photo, taken by a friend and neighbor, Wes Maxwell, captures the pure joy of my father’s return after being gone for over a year. We considered ourselves lucky – he was supposed to go to Vietnam, but two weeks out from departure, on Jan. 23, 1968, the North Koreans seized the U.S. ship, The Pueblo, and he was on his way to South Korea instead.

Still, there were dangers in the deployment: not being able to tell who was North Korean and who was from the south in a country where both sides are of the same ethnic culture; the need to carry guns when off base; the knowledge that the Korean War was never “won” or resolved, eventually leading to the War in Vietnam. My father made it back but two of his fellow G.I.s didn’t, the price to pay when involved in the instability of foreign governments. Even now, some 73 years after the Korean War began, American troops are still in South Korea.

So when I hear civilian friends hoot and holler and staunchly support the U.S. bombing of Iran, where 165 school girls were killed on the first day and the death toll now climbs to over 1,000, including six U.S. soldiers, I know as someone who grew up in the military, that they are reacting as if this new war Trump has started is a movie they can watch and then change the channel. But it is military families who will pay as those in uniform are killed, maimed and emotionally damaged.

Yes, those who sign up know that this is the reality or risk of being in the military, but they still hope that whoever is the Commander in Chief at the helm is someone who is stable and only willing to go to war when absolutely necessary.

Sadly, that is not the case with Trump, a man whose five generations of family have never served. For him, it is a game of checkers (since chess would be too complex for him), a chance to be the tough guy when in fact he has never known what it means to sacrifice and suffer.

He is a man who called dead soldiers, “losers and suckers” and John McCain a failure because he “allowed” himself to be captured. “I like people who aren’t captured,” Trump said. And still, Americans who claim to support the troops voted for him anyway.

My father and the fathers I grew up with served, as have many of my friends and relatives; but military families also serve. That means sacrifice, loss, no permanent home, and, yes, often adventure. It’s something most Americans don’t and will never understand. This is not a game and cheering for the bombing of Iran just underscores the ignorance of what we used to call, “them” – civilians who are armchair soldiers, but who will never have to put their own boots on the ground.