The following letter was sent to a veteran who applied for a job.

Dear Job Applicant,

We thank you for your interest in the position with our company. However, at this time, we don’t feel like you are a proper fit for us. Your résumé mostly included your military experience and then the fast food restaurant you worked at in high school. And while we’re sure that “snappin’ necks and cashin’ checks” is a very valuable skill in the military, it’s a skill that doesn’t really transfer over to civilian employment.

Look: I’m going to be honest with you and try to help you out. Hiring managers are over the whole “veteran status” thing. We have been for a long time. 2004 or so, we were all about it. We were getting tax breaks all over the place.

And although we didn’t serve in the military ourselves, choosing instead to go to college so we could actually be qualified for these jobs, we felt like we were doing a patriotic duty by hiring you guys when you got back. Doing our part to help the country as a whole. It made us feel all red, white, and awesome inside.

But by early 2010 we were past all of that. We learned there are really two groups of veterans.

The majority of veterans excel at getting sexual harassment complaints filed against them and telling graphic stories around the break room about skull fucking dead “hajis” from Samara to Mosul when no one asked.

Or the other group who, while their work ethic is top notch and they’re highly motivated, make the rest of us look bad because we’re half-assing it. We just want to get maybe half a day of work done and then play Pokémon on our phones until we can go home.

And then we have you specifically. Your résumé reads like you got advice for how to apply for jobs out of Guns and Ammo magazine.

You wrote about your ability to operate a paper shredder on the list of your office skills. Come on, Man. This isn’t the Clinton campaign. Everyone knows how to use a paper shredder. But it really doesn’t come up that much.

And why would you list your confirmed kills? I don’t even want to know that information. Now I feel like I might have to testify at your war crimes trial one day.

Listen. We already have a couple of veterans working here that are relatively well balanced. That gives us enough that if there was ever a workplace shooting, we’re confident that they could handle it in place of us having to spend money on security guards.

So while we’re not giving you the job, I want you to know that it’s not that we’re not hiring you because you’re a veteran. I just want you to understand that being a veteran really isn’t helping you anymore, either. I advise you to start cutting your own path as a civilian now and stop suckling at the teat of being whatever an “E-6” is.

We wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. Thank you for your service.

Sincerely, Lorinda Jones, Human Resources Manager

P.S. If it’s any consolation, your resume is going over great in my Hiring Managers Facebook Group. Everyone thinks it’s hilarious.