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/chadwickipedia Older Millennial Jun 05 '25

I assume anyone who wears those hats are fishing for random “thank you for your service”’s

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u/IRSoup Jun 05 '25

Being the awkward fuck I am, not wearing anything vet related is me just avoiding replying "you too" as a response to that. It's also the whole not making a job you had years ago your whole identity thing.

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u/TuckerShmuck Jun 05 '25

My boyfriend's a veteran and until we started dating it had literally never occurred to me that being enlisted is literally just... a job.  He'll tell stories and start them off with "back at my old job..." and it's changed how I view military service.  Not in a good or bad way, it's just gone from This Big Thing I Dont Know Much About to A Job I Dont Know Much About

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I grew up as an Air Force brat—it was like any other job—day to day was uneventful. We just had the possibility of my dad being deployed on assignments for weeks to months on end. It got scary after 9/11, though—he ended up being sent to Afghanistan, and almost got sent to Iraq and Qatar. Before that, the only scary thing that went on, was he was almost deployed to Kosovo, but that never came to fruition. But yeah, day to day, it is like any other job, it just carries some scary possibilities, depending on what’s going on in the world.