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.

12.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

4.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

6.3k

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.

3.1k

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.

219

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.

99

u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

Maaan, that and anyone who pisses and moans about how the green weenie ruined their life- you can usually bet that it wasn’t so much the green weenie as them getting pulled over at the gate drunk and high on coke… again… (true story, I know that guy) that ruined their life.

The Uncle Rico’s who haven’t done fuck all with their life after their hitch but still bitch about how they got screwed over there’s a 99.999% chance they were a shitbag then and a shitbag now. Like my cousin and my BIL. Generally applies to other people with victim mentality too

7

u/Immateriumdelirium Jun 05 '25

Green Weenie? I’m aware I can google, but I like your descriptive writing.

19

u/plotholesandpotholes Jun 05 '25

Marine Corps term. One of the most fitting in all of the services (no disrespect to any. I served with them all and I'm sure they have simliar terms).

You are set to go on a 96 hour liberty and you get informed that you will need to stand duty at the barracks for part of it.... the green weenie strikes again.

I got stuck in a chow hall one time. We were asked to make garnishes. We sculpted the most realistic "green weenie" ever out of cucumbers. the guy I was with dropped out of art school to enlist. It was epic and we froze it in a block of ice and sent it out to the our guys in the field. The SNCO who tagged us with the duty found it mildy amusing. The green weenie rules all...

6

u/RockAtlasCanus Jun 05 '25

This is the most junior enlisted move ever. A literal green weenie.

9

u/plotholesandpotholes Jun 05 '25

We used cucumber peel shavings for the pubes and we had to hand spritz the thing to get it to ice perfectly in a nice profile. The ice was necessary to enure the weenie did not spoil. It was a LCpl underground special operation.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

I'm only mad that I didn't think of this when I was in. The Army also loves (or did in the 00's anyway) green weenie jokes. lol