Jeez. A national campaign to get rid of me. More emails than I can read. Threats of an advertising boycott. An answering machine jammed with hate-filled calls. It’s pig heaven for an attention-craving columnist. What did I do to deserve this?

I suggested that we stop asking taxpayers to foot the bill for military funeral honors for all veterans. The people in charge of these things have already decided we can’t afford live buglers. One of the buglers contacted me, and that got me thinking. Why are we doing this in the first place?

So I wrote that men and women killed in combat deserve full military honors. “But what about the guy who spends a couple of years in the military and then gets on with his life? Bear in mind that most veterans did nothing heroic. They served, and that’s laudable, but it hardly seems necessary to provide them all with military honors after they have died.”

That set people off. “Despicable! Everybody who puts on a uniform is a hero. When they sign their name on the dotted line, they are giving the government a blank check, and blah, blah, blah. You owe our veterans an apology.”

Nonsense. I stand by every word I wrote.

I am my own best example. I flunked out of college and was drafted into the Marine Corps. I went to Vietnam. I did nothing heroic. Nor did any of my close friends. But I knew people who did, and it devalues the real heroes to say that everybody was one. If everybody is a hero, nobody is.

I sometimes write about heroes. Maybe you remember Jerry Abbenhaus. He was a Chaminade graduate. He joined the Marines and was a machine gunner. One day his unit was ambushed and Abbenhaus was able to safely reach cover. But when another Marine was hit by a North Vietnamese machine gun, Jerry rose to return the fire and let a corpsman get to his wounded companion. Five rounds tore into Jerry. He never walked again. He died in 1986.

On the other side of the equation, I had a friend who was about to get drafted. He did not want to end up in the rice paddies, so he joined the Air Force. That meant a four-year commitment instead of two years, but he figured it was worth it. Joining the Air Force was honorable, but not heroic.

He ended up in Vietnam. He was a little cog in the big wheel. He sorted mail. Honorable, but not heroic. He had an apartment in Saigon. The bar girls were attractive and friendly; the dope was plentiful and cheap. It was the best year of his life.

If he were to get full military honors at his funeral, I don’t know what the bugler should play. Maybe something from Jimi Hendrix.

I am not demeaning my friend’s service. I come from a long line of non-heroes. My dad was at Guadalcanal. He ran the largest still on the island. When he died, I did not choose to have a military funeral. I bought a bottle of very good whiskey.

After I got out of the service, I went to college on the GI bill. As far as I’m concerned, Uncle Sam and I are square. I do not feel like the country owes me anything. Truth is, I got more from the military than the military got from me. I do not expect the taxpayers to pony up for a military funeral.

Two days before my column was published, the newspaper ran a story about the money we spend on former presidents. In addition to pensions, we pay for their travel, their office staff and their office space. Not counting Secret Service protection, we paid $3.7 million for our ex-presidents last year. Biggest spender? George W. Bush. Next was Bill Clinton.

Bear in mind that none of these men is poor, and they can make tens of thousands of dollars for giving a speech. It would be nice if those men would say, “Hey, the government is broke. We don’t need this.”

But that is not their nature. They feel entitled.

Admittedly, military funerals are not so costly. Missouri averages 729 of them per month. At Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, the cost is about $400. At private cemeteries, the cost is a little higher.

As I said in Wednesday’s column, the way you cut a budget is by cutting small programs and trimming big ones. I suggested letting veterans service organizations provide military funerals for their members. That did not seem despicable or outrageous to me. It still doesn’t.

Nor did it seem political. I thought reasonable people on both sides of the aisle understood we have to control our spending.

Sadly, if the response I’ve gotten is any indication, there’s not much hope for any kind of a deal. Nobody wants to give up anything. I was hoping veterans could lead the way. It would be a heroic thing to do.