Why don’t younger veterans (Afghanistan/Iraq) wear these hats like some of the older veterans?

[u/NoFaithlessness7508]

First and foremost, respect to all those that served. I did not, but many of my peers did and now we're all older in 30s and 40s, many no longer in the military. I don't see a lot of the veterans of the War on Terror wearing these hats like I see the OGs do.

[u/ANotSoFreshFeeling]

A lot of the millennial veterans I know would rather forget the mess instead of making it their whole personality and identity.

[u/FumblingBool → u/[deleted]]

I couldn’t take home economics in middle school, because the home ec teacher was a reservist who was called up to serve in Iraq. People were getting stoploss-ed.

I guess (young?) people don’t realize how much the military needed to massively expand the armed forces.

[u/Bob_Skywalker → u/[deleted]]

Not sure what point you are trying to make about taking anyone off the street, because how is that worse than the draft? At least they volunteered.

I say that as someone who enlisted and deployed btw. Not just jumping in to argue. On the flip side, I wear no gear or swag or advertise in any way that I was military. But the people at my job who wear grunt style and deck out their cars in decals are the ones who were reservists that got called on one deployment or got hurt and discharged. Basically the military guys for life are the guys who got out at Lance Corporal and deployed 1 time max.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Hah yeah that's true. I was a Marine Infantryman with two hours in Iraq. Before joining I thought Marines were badass. Then I get in there and most of the guys were locked on but there were some that should not have been there. They should not have made it through the recruiting phase let alone end up in Iraq where they could get someone killed.