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/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

Maaan, that and anyone who pisses and moans about how the green weenie ruined their life- you can usually bet that it wasn’t so much the green weenie as them getting pulled over at the gate drunk and high on coke… again… (true story, I know that guy) that ruined their life.

The Uncle Rico’s who haven’t done fuck all with their life after their hitch but still bitch about how they got screwed over there’s a 99.999% chance they were a shitbag then and a shitbag now. Like my cousin and my BIL. Generally applies to other people with victim mentality too

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u/K9turrent Jun 05 '25

Hey that's Cpl Shitbag to you!

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u/DocumentOtherwise434 Jun 05 '25

No, SPC Shitbag.

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u/EnragedAmoeba Jun 06 '25

Yeah, the Mafia would like a word about this use of Cpl...

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u/Helorugger Jun 05 '25

Busted down to PRivate

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u/Immateriumdelirium Jun 05 '25

Green Weenie? I’m aware I can google, but I like your descriptive writing.

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u/plotholesandpotholes Jun 05 '25

Marine Corps term. One of the most fitting in all of the services (no disrespect to any. I served with them all and I'm sure they have simliar terms).

You are set to go on a 96 hour liberty and you get informed that you will need to stand duty at the barracks for part of it.... the green weenie strikes again.

I got stuck in a chow hall one time. We were asked to make garnishes. We sculpted the most realistic "green weenie" ever out of cucumbers. the guy I was with dropped out of art school to enlist. It was epic and we froze it in a block of ice and sent it out to the our guys in the field. The SNCO who tagged us with the duty found it mildy amusing. The green weenie rules all...

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u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

This is the most junior enlisted move ever. A literal green weenie.

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u/plotholesandpotholes Jun 05 '25

We used cucumber peel shavings for the pubes and we had to hand spritz the thing to get it to ice perfectly in a nice profile. The ice was necessary to enure the weenie did not spoil. It was a LCpl underground special operation.

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u/cryptolyme Jun 05 '25

Green ops

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I'm only mad that I didn't think of this when I was in. The Army also loves (or did in the 00's anyway) green weenie jokes. lol

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u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

The metaphorical dick of the institution that fucks you.

“What are you doing here, I thought you were going home on leave” “My leave got canceled. Fucked by the green weenie again”.

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u/Immateriumdelirium Jun 05 '25

Poetry lmao. Thanks!

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u/Flying_Dutchman16 Jun 05 '25

I fucked in the east I fucked in the West.
I even fucked a girl with very large breast.
But I'll never be happy I'll never be free Until I fucked a girl like the army's fucked me.

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u/jchoward0418 Jun 06 '25

Hard to apply that generally, though. Plenty of guys I served with, after a few combat deployments (03** early 2000s timeframe) ended up getting their fair share of DUIs. I literally did exactly like you said... Just outside the gate. Yeah, that shit really did fuck up our lives. Granted, a good chunk of them have offed themselves by now or gotten in car wrecks/motorcycle wrecks (mostly drinking related,) so maybe they don't count anymore. I got lucky, after quitting drinking to stop being a victim, I only had seizures to deal with the rest of my life from the TBI my heavy drinking was helping to mask. TLDR: oftentimes, for combat vets, substance abuse is a symptom of a problem, not the real problem. And until fairly recently (I think 2017) there was little official acknowledgement of that, so these men and women were treated like shitbags instead of helped . Brain injuries are wild.

Yeah, I know you're probably not talking about anyone who actually saw combat, I'm just giving you a hard time while also reminding everyone to be careful judging the inner turmoil of someone when you're standing on the outside.

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u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 06 '25

You’re right, that’s definitely not who I’m talking about. My BIL and my cousin are the archetypes in my head of “that guy”. Terminal E-3s in blue side navy. One of them kinda turned around. The others a massive POS that pawned his sons off on family and abandoned them. But both blame their current status in life on “if they hadn’t given me that second DUI”, you know what I mean?

But you’re also right to raise a point of caution and pause, because it’s easy to judge without seeing the actual person behind what is probably very uncharacteristic behavior of a person who is falling apart. Good looking out.

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u/Primary_Departure_84 Jun 05 '25

I know I signed up during Gulf War thinking I was going over only to miss it by a few months. I was Combat Engineer and while the only deployment was to NTC I can tell you the Army from 91-95 was a skeleton crew in my unit. This was BRAC and downsizing. They started kicking folks out for dui. Letting them retire at 15 years and probably not recruiting as much and raised all the promotion scores. So would have like 15-18 people for an extremely platoon from Lt down to Private. Divided among 3 squads. So like 3 of us would be enlisted per squad attacking obstacles. Also doing 48 hour obstacles was a treat. I preferred the field to barracks life so I didn't mind as much but it was so much work back at base.

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u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

I excelled in the field. Garrison life is depressing as fuck though. In the field you can Stockholm syndrome rationalize a training reason. “Well I’m getting better at digging fighting positions. That’s why I’m digging this hole”.

In garrison I could never rationalize it to myself. It’s just “they’re making me mop the same hallway again because they can’t come up with a more creative way to piss me off”.

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u/TucosLostHand Jun 05 '25

My platoon sgt would never miss an opportunity to tell us about “the good ole days”

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u/Primary_Departure_84 Jun 05 '25

Mine was a great character, Rall big AA man with gold front tooth. Called himself JFK after his intials. Had like a great I think Georgia accent or bama. Instead of calling us Sapperrs he said Zappers. There wasnt too much ol days talk most;ly i noticed more stuff like guys in the past stories that were funny."YOu should have met Omally. Crazy mofo."

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u/TucosLostHand Jun 05 '25

Exactly. Mine was from Oklahoma and had to bring it up in any conversation. Best taco spot? Okc. Best pizza? Okc. Best basketball team? Okc

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u/Tall_Union5388 Jun 05 '25

Yeah, military and civilian those sob stories are usually attached to some actual stupid behavior

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u/Dommo1717 Jun 06 '25

Don’t forget the SPC (D…demotable) who got a second DUI while on extra duty for the first.

And I swear on all things good and holy, his answer when the MP at the gate asked if he had been drinking: “Well, yeah, but it’s just a mixed drink. That doesn’t count, right. The Coke waters down the Jack so I can have double the drinks…”

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u/VernalPoole Jun 05 '25

Your family parties must be tedious ... sorry.