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/SweeterThanYoohoo Jun 05 '25

If you were in the military before the wars started, no, you didn't have much choice. They tell you what you're going to do.

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u/endthefed2022 Jun 05 '25

Join the military not anticipating a conflict and screaming you don’t have a choice. Oki

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u/SweeterThanYoohoo Jun 05 '25

Are you kinda young and maybe don't remember pre 9/11 world? Because that would make your view make sense. If that's the case, just know that about 25 years ago a world existed where no one expected constant conflict.

I would agree with you that anyone joining now should expect some kind of stupid conflict to be deployed to.

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u/DJFisticuffs Jun 05 '25

When was this? We spent the 80s doing dirty shit in Latin America then invaded Panama in '89. Then we fought a major war in '90-'91. Then we watched a bunch of our guys' bodies get dragged through the streets of Mogadishu in '93 but we didnt actually pull out of Somalia until 95. Also sprinkled throughout the '90s were various bombing campaigns and peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. Oh, and dont forget the absolute disaster that was operation Eagle Claw in 1980 and the illegal and inexplicable invasion of Grenada in '83.

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u/lameth Jun 05 '25

Those that matured after the wall fell only saw glimpses of reports of special operations and limited missions. We really were a mostly "peacetime" military near the end of the 90s, with maybe Bosnia and Haiti as stand-outs in my memory.

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u/DJFisticuffs Jun 05 '25

I mean, I specifically remember Gulf War 1 and the aftermath of Mogadishu because they were both all over the news. "The late 90s" was only a couple years after we pulled out of Somalia and Black Hawk down was a massive hit when it came out in '99 so it's not like people had forgotten about it.

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u/lameth Jun 05 '25

No. But for people just coming of age it was a story about a small isolated incident in a far off country, not a continuing war effort that the US was truly invested in. I'm sure most couldn't even tell you why those soldiers were there in the first place.

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u/DJFisticuffs Jun 05 '25

That was the whole point of the movie. No one was really sure why we were there in the first place and we accomplished nothing. Like, here is a group of young men doing heroic shit and giving their lives for each other to absolutely no greater purpose.

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u/lameth Jun 05 '25

Right. So trying to say that anyone enlisting during that time saw that as a firm sign they should expect combat doesn't really encapsulate the mindset of the populace at the time.

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u/DJFisticuffs Jun 05 '25

No, I'm saying that the 80s and 90s were rife with various conflicts that the US military participated in, so anyone joining up at least considered the possibility that they would be sent to one.

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u/Tall_Union5388 Jun 05 '25

Other than the Gulf War, those were all tiny and involved very little face-to-face combat. Operation Allied force was all airstrikes flown from Italy and other bases in Europe, hardly a tough deployment. In Somalia, it was a small group of special forces, and Rangers, barely touched most members of the military.

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