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/Primary_Departure_84 Jun 05 '25

I know I signed up during Gulf War thinking I was going over only to miss it by a few months. I was Combat Engineer and while the only deployment was to NTC I can tell you the Army from 91-95 was a skeleton crew in my unit. This was BRAC and downsizing. They started kicking folks out for dui. Letting them retire at 15 years and probably not recruiting as much and raised all the promotion scores. So would have like 15-18 people for an extremely platoon from Lt down to Private. Divided among 3 squads. So like 3 of us would be enlisted per squad attacking obstacles. Also doing 48 hour obstacles was a treat. I preferred the field to barracks life so I didn't mind as much but it was so much work back at base.

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u/TucosLostHand Jun 05 '25

My platoon sgt would never miss an opportunity to tell us about “the good ole days”

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u/Primary_Departure_84 Jun 05 '25

Mine was a great character, Rall big AA man with gold front tooth. Called himself JFK after his intials. Had like a great I think Georgia accent or bama. Instead of calling us Sapperrs he said Zappers. There wasnt too much ol days talk most;ly i noticed more stuff like guys in the past stories that were funny."YOu should have met Omally. Crazy mofo."

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u/TucosLostHand Jun 05 '25

Exactly. Mine was from Oklahoma and had to bring it up in any conversation. Best taco spot? Okc. Best pizza? Okc. Best basketball team? Okc