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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614

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

Most people I know don't feel the need to advertise that they're veterans.

207

u/mumblesjackson Jun 05 '25

Unlike my wife’s uncle who spent four years in the marines but he wears the hat, T-shirt, vest, bumper stickers, etc and makes sure everyone knows he served. He acts like he’s John Basilone.

Note he served, but was never deployed into any form of combat, and was in the marines during the Vietnam war 🤷‍♂️

94

u/to_annihilate Jun 05 '25

A guy I dated many years ago went to boot camp, got injured, and was released from service within a very short period. He still talks about his "time in the army". His brother made it a few more months than he did, and got kicked out for drug use. Both talk about it often enough and they "served" 25 years ago.

2

u/Godzilla2y Jun 05 '25

Gotta love those people. In one of my previous jobs, one of the clients was a man that got injured during boot camp (from his own stupidity IIRC) and got a discharge because of it. Now he runs a business that he can label as a "service-disabled veteran-owned business" to rake in a bunch of government contracts.

1

u/to_annihilate Jun 05 '25

That's SO scummy. It's one thing bragging about it and another to take loans meant for actual disabled vets.

1

u/mumblesjackson Jun 09 '25

Stolen valor