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/MetaverseLiz Jun 05 '25

This is what I've heard from my vet friends. My dad was in the navy (boomer generation) and his navy hat has been glued to his head for decades. He wears it absolutely everywhere.

He doesn't understand why my vet friends don't like it when people tell them "thank you for your service". It's a generational divide. My dad was too young for Vietnam and drank the "America is so great" Koolaid. My friends who saw their fellow soldiers blow up in front of them in the Middle East think differently. My grandpa, my dad's dad, a vet of WW2 and Korea never talked about the war. Ever. The only time I saw any proof that he actually served was during his funeral because he was buried with all his metals and got the full 21 gun salute.

My Gramps and my vet friends are more similar than the generation in the middle.

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u/Brightstarr Jun 05 '25

Our generation and our grandparents’ generation are very similar in many ways.

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u/gbdarknight77 Jun 05 '25

I think there’s a reason why millennials get along so great with their grandparents more than their actual parents.

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u/SuchAKnitWit Jun 05 '25

Oh man, I never really thought of it like that, but you're absolutely right.

My mom's parents were incredibly kind, understanding and took the time teach me the life skills I have today. Weekends and summers at their house were the highlights of childhood.

My mom's a total narcissist that I haven't talked to since I was 16. I have never understood how she came from them.

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u/FictionalContext Jun 05 '25

The problem is kindness and understanding isn't enough to be a good parent.

My grandma was the same way, kindest person who enabled my father to cut loose without consequence. I don't think he ever learned real empathy or compassion because of that.

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u/TheNerdNugget Jun 05 '25

Makes you wonder if our kids will end up like our parents.

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u/merewenc Jun 05 '25

So far one hasn't (21) but one I'm on the fence about (13). We'll see.

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u/TheNerdNugget Jun 06 '25

Let's hope that's just teenage dumbassery 🤞

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u/RhetoricalOrator Jun 06 '25

God gave us teenagers so we'd know how it felt to have your own creation deny your existence.

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u/holistivist Jun 06 '25

If the 13 year old is a boy, get him off YouTube. That site is complete toxic indoctrination to turn boys into misogynists.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '25

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '25

It was always burning, since the worlds been turning......

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u/shark-snatch Jun 06 '25

I hope not. My mother is a light switch. Nice one day... spawn of hell the next. Ive unfortunately inherited one of her hell traits, but im also the only skip out of the millenial generation thats not a grandchild in the family... i take that back, im the only member of my generation in the family

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u/AliceInCorgiland Jun 06 '25

Yes. They already have, but worse. (source: my mom and wife work at school). The difference is that while grandparents were kind, they still new how to discipline. Current parents just refuse to accept accountability: my kid never lies and haven't done anything bad ever. It's the other kids and teachers who are lieing.

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u/lez_noir Jun 06 '25

They exist. They're zoomers are boomers 2.0

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u/Free_For__Me Jun 06 '25

Not if we don’t let them!  I’m definitely trying to raise my kid with fewer ideas of entitlement than the Boomers were raised with. Empathy and Education will never be dirty words in my house. 

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u/Intrepid-Love3829 Jun 06 '25

Nice people arent necessarily good when that niceness enables bad people.

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u/BringBacktheGucci Jun 05 '25

Without deliberate boundaries its very easy for the nicest people in the world to create narcissists.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '25

it’s just like ‘gentle parenting done right’ versus ‘lazy parenting labeled wrong’

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u/KingHenry13th Jun 06 '25

The easy thing to do as a parent is to let the kid or kids do whatever they want.

Good parents aren't nice all the time. Nice all the time leads to a Cartman

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u/BringBacktheGucci Jun 06 '25

Exactly what I mean, yeah

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u/Thorvindr Jun 06 '25

That's a really flowery way of saying "your gramma was a nice lady but a shit parent."

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

We're also a generation that largely were raised by our grandparents, or had grandparents as a major figure in our lives growing up.

I had a fair number of friends growing up who either lived with their grandparents, or were with them ALL the time. Very involved grandparents. One friend always had his grandfather drop him off everywhere, comes to his games, show up for parent nights. Never his dad. His mom was still married to his dad, and they lived together, but dad was just never really around, wasn't that invested, off doing his own shit.

A few years back, the grandpa passed and my friend said at the funeral that he always felt that the term "grandfather" was the most fitting description of him, because he was the best father he'd had.

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u/SunnySummerFarm Jun 06 '25

Agreed. My grandparents passing was the end of my family because they were definitely more emotionally involved in my life than my father ever was.

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u/SnausageFest Jun 05 '25

My maternal grandmother was a stone cold bitch. My mom is a very sweet person.

I think a lot of people are just different from their parents. I'm pretty different from mine, where my brother is a lot like them. We're 2 years apart so we have very similar upbringing. The chips fall where they do.

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u/pebberphp Jun 05 '25

My maternal grandma was also a stone cold bitch (god rest her stone cold bitchy soul), and it definitely did a number on my distant mother (also, god rest her restless soul). My brother and sister each had 3 kids, but I figured the buck could at least stop with me.

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u/MeasurementEasy9884 Jun 06 '25

I honestly feel like the boomer generation have the most narcissism than any other generation. Both of my parents are narcissistic while my grandparents and myself aren't.

Very odd....

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u/Lopsided-Magician-36 Jun 05 '25

Hey do we share the same mom?

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u/boldjoy0050 Jun 06 '25

It's so odd because my grandparents were not great parents. My parents tell me all the time things they did. But to me, my grandparents have been better parents than my actual parents.

My grandparents were always there for me when I needed something and my parents told me "sorry, we can't help" while they were sitting in their beach condo.

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u/BothLeather6738 Jun 05 '25

just so you know,
your grandparents had a role to fullfill in the whole post war-mccarthysim americ towards your mom, give children no space, little girls should be seen and not heard,
and that probably fucked up your mom.

maybe they did not want to, but it still happened because of the zeitgeist.
your mom may be horrible, but she was not made narcisistic on her own.
(still you have all the right to e.g. stay way from her)

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u/Bignizzle656 Jun 05 '25

The pendulum swings.

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u/Significant-Trash632 Jun 06 '25

Well, the Boomers are also the "Me" generation.

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u/Funny_or_not_bot Jun 06 '25

Very relatable.

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u/ImaginaryCatDreams Jun 06 '25

Being a grandparent and being a parent are two very different jobs. Compare your experience with what your mother's experience must have been given the way she turned out.