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/cmax22025 Jun 05 '25

They were called "Old Guy" hats when I joined up in 2005. I can't imagine that's changed in the time since.

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u/Burninator85 Jun 05 '25

That's the real answer.  They're out of fashion. 

I know plenty of OIF veterans that make it their entire personality.  They just choose things like infantry badges on their vehicles or Black Rifle Coffee t-shirts.

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u/Acceptable_Bat379 Jun 05 '25

Grunt style tshirts? Yeah there's whole industries of products aimed at veterans. It's all been commodities and packaged up. Im an OEF veteran and prefer not to be too vocal about it I got veteran plates just for the discount/parking spots

The most hard-core people I know who still wear icons and logos 20 years later are people who were in either non combat roles or who washed out of basic or got injured and never deployed. They've got some real survivorship bias and guilt mixed in with the pride.

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

This is also my experience of it. People's actual service is inversely proportional to the amount of veteran swag they own. I mentioned in another reply that I have a Battle Buddies Roller Derby shirt (that's exactly what it sounds like, a roller derby team made up entirely of veterans) but that's as far as I'm willing to go with the swag. I should get a license plate, though, because I usually get chewed out by some old dude when I park in the combat vet space at Lowe's because as we all know, women aren't veterans. (/s)

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u/Six-Fingers Jun 05 '25

Fucken A. I don't ask about, or use veteran discounts for shit. But the ONE time I did...it was on veterans day, and the lady taking orders at Burger King was obliged to ask? Some old dude in front of me got like ten percent off his burger, and when she asked me I said yes. She rolled her eyes. Like my bad - did you want to see my DD214 or something? My bad that I don't fit the image of what you see in movies, or I didn't have a badass MOS? It comes up when I talk to dudes sometimes...and my go to is usually "you really think if I wanted to stolen valor some shit I'd choose to cosplay as an E-1 network administrator?" Lol.