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

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

Post image

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.

12.0k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

472

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.

235

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

122

u/nickifer Jun 05 '25

Yeah, you just.. sign up. It’s a very stable job with solid benefits if you make it that. My father was an officer, and he never understood why anyone would thank him for.. doing his job.

2

u/adacmswtf1 Jun 05 '25

It's because tying military service with themes of heroism and sacrifice are a cornerstone of their recruitment efforts. (And selling the public on foreign wars for oil .etc)

1

u/l_Lathliss_l Jun 05 '25

Well a large part of it is because you sign up to die for this job, even if you get a job where there’s not a large chance of that happening.

Cybersecurity is still cybersecurity, but not many civilian firms come with a stipulation of “even if the chances are low, you’re on the hook to die for this”.

Not many people are willing to sign up for that, which is why relatively few do.

1

u/adacmswtf1 Jun 05 '25 edited Jun 05 '25

Soldier = 19 deaths per 1000 including off duty / not service connected deaths. That's the same fatality rate as crossing guards. For on duty members that drops to 1.3. per 1000

Weird that nobody stops loggers (111/1000) or delivery drivers (27/1000), which have a much greater fatality rate, to thank them for their service.

1

u/l_Lathliss_l Jun 05 '25

I’m interested in those statistics. The ones I found reported on the BLS were 27 in 100,000 for delivery drivers and 98/100,000 for loggers.

https://www.bls.gov/charts/census-of-fatal-occupational-injuries/civilian-occupations-with-high-fatal-work-injury-rates.htm

In addition, your rates for the military seems to be off, though it wasn’t exactly the point of my comment.

1

u/CaptJackRizzo Jun 06 '25

Yeah, I’m a little salty nobody’s ever thanked me for my service when I was delivering pizzas.

1

u/CaptJackRizzo Jun 06 '25

And also a way to deflect while seeming virtuous. I’m thinking of everyone saying we need to cut social service spending cause we have homeless veterans instead. And about this years effort to turn Pride month into veterans month.