Supporting veterans vs. supporting 'socialized medicine'

Or, Yet Another Example of Conservative Cognitive Dissonance. Responding to a post from a right-winger who accuses an Iraq veteran with PSTD of faking his symptoms, digby says:

The political activists who metaphorically spit on the troops today are on the right.

This is going to be more common as we come up against the government's responsibility toward our military and the brainwashing these selfish right-wing creeps have undergone for the last 20 years. I don't think they've ever contemplated the fact that their patriotic reverence for the troops might conflict with their anti-government philosophy. After all, the military is a government program. And there are going to be veterans who need the government's help for the rest of their lives.

What's the ideologically correct right-wing position here? Conservatives simultaneously believe that (1) Americans should do everything possible to "support the troops," and anyone who doesn't is unpatriotic, and (2) "socialized medicine" is evil. So what happens when thousands of returning Iraq veterans need medical and psychiatric care — services that are provided to them through that evil "socialized" healthcare program known as the VA? It's quite a dilemma.

It's kind of like that bill that would've prohibited the sale of guns to terrorism suspects. That one had conservatives tied up in knots too. "Terrorists are bad, but buying guns is good! Urgh!"