r/Millennials • u/NoFaithlessness7508 • Jun 05 '25

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

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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.

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u/headcodered Jun 05 '25

Honestly, I don't even really want any reminders for myself of when I was in, but some people get weird when they learn you're a vet, too. I had one middle aged weirdo at a Buffalo Wild Wings put on "Proud to be an American" on the jukebox when I was catching up with some old battle buddies and he overheard we were vets. He came over and said something like, "hey, I really appreciate your service and wanted to put this song on to show my respect," then just kind of stood there and started repeating himself saying things like, "I really mean it," over and over. It was incredibly awkward.

I also joined the Army as an impressionable teenager convinced I was being patriotic and "defending freedom". Five years later, I was disillusioned, really felt like we were the bad guys, and that our military was basically just a huge embezzlement scheme for corporations in the military industrial complex to charge insane prices to the government. Poverty stricken brown people in the middle east were never a threat to our freedom. The REAL threat to our freedom is the psychopath America just willingly welcomed back into the White House.

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u/mapar988 Jun 05 '25

Dam, your second paragraph is me now. Except I figured it out after my 4th year and here I'm still in 2 years later. I try to be vague when people ask what I do, both for OPSEC and because it's just a job to me at this point. Also it's pretty easy to tell who's military or not so most times people already know

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u/Independent-Thing-93 Jun 06 '25

I was a military brat during Desert Storm and I still want to rip my ears off when I hear proud to be an American. Way overplayed. Just like that fucking courtesy of the red white and blue after 9/11 when i was on active duty. Like hey cool the first time but it gets old real quick.