disposable grunts.

If you think "grunts" are disposable, then obviously you haven't served in the military. The military does not flush years of training down a toilet unless there is a damned good reason for doing so, like "if you don't flush this soldier down this toilet, Satan will reach out and kill you and your family while his pet dog eats the bones and brains of your newborn." This is not an exaggeration. The military deals with matters that are unimaginable, unfathomable, and unconscionable to most people.

The military's larger vision of itself is not a simplistic kill things and break things

Most generals would beg to differ:

“Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar; and still there are things worth fighting for.”

Gen Norman Schwarzkopf

The point being, the "larger vision" that you speak of is for the politicians to ponder. When the politicians settle on the military option, they are settling upon war. Soldiers regardless of rank will generally greet war with extreme trepidation, yet are cognizant that that is their duty to perform.

The military is there for when civil society breaks down. When civil society breaks down, there is chaos and anarchy...the military establishes martial law in such circumstances, which will involve killing people and breaking things until whatever is left reorganizes itself into civil society.

In foreign wars, the assumption is that there is no civil society "over there", so we do a lot of killing and breaking. Domestically, as long as civil society is functional, the military is kept at bay.

The military is essentially hell in a handbasket. To think the military's "larger vision" is something else is extremely dangerous...it's what led Obama to intervene in Libya, and Libya today is arguably in worse shape than Iraq.

Huckabee got it right...anyone else with a differing opinion needs to gain perspective on military culture.