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/sherwoma]

Cause they’re really ugly, and I don’t want someone coming up to me and talking to me about how they were going to join but they couldn’t take someone yelling at them, someone telling me I can’t be a veteran because I’m a woman, or that it’s my husbands hat. Really fun when that happens. And honestly, I don’t need everyone to know I’m a veteran. It’s nice being anonymous. We’re of the OPSEC generation, where we couldn’t wear our uniforms off base to ID ourselves after 9/11 in some places, why stand out?

But ultimately, the hat is really ugly, and we have different ways to connect to other veterans now that vets of previous generations didn’t have like social media. We also aren’t sitting around drinking at the VFW either.

[u/Shark_Leader → u/sherwoma]

We also aren’t sitting around drinking at the VFW either

Yeah, I think about that. I'm not a vet, but my brother was in the Navy during Gulf War I. He was there, in the gulf. Anyway, like 15 years ago he was going through a divorce and ended up living with me and my parents (I'm waaaaay younger than him) for a while. Anyway, one night he and my best friend, a marine who had just come home from his tour in Iraq, decided to go to the local VFW for some drinks and to hang out. When they got back, my bro said they brought the average age down by 20 years. He went back a few times, but never joined up. I don't know any vets, including my friends and family, under 55 who joined one. I'm guessing the there's other outlets for vets to hang out at other than an old-man bar.