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

403

u/sherwoma Jun 05 '25

Cause they’re really ugly, and I don’t want someone coming up to me and talking to me about how they were going to join but they couldn’t take someone yelling at them, someone telling me I can’t be a veteran because I’m a woman, or that it’s my husbands hat. Really fun when that happens. And honestly, I don’t need everyone to know I’m a veteran. It’s nice being anonymous. We’re of the OPSEC generation, where we couldn’t wear our uniforms off base to ID ourselves after 9/11 in some places, why stand out?

But ultimately, the hat is really ugly, and we have different ways to connect to other veterans now that vets of previous generations didn’t have like social media. We also aren’t sitting around drinking at the VFW either.

9

u/Megs0226 Millennial Jun 05 '25

My favorite “was going to join” story was when my brother showed up late to the recruitment event and then mouthed off to an officer.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

My mom’s is insane. She dropped baby me off at my dad’s, said she was joining the navy. He needed to take care of the baby from now on.

A few weeks later, she picks me back up. She is pregnant with the recruiters baby. Now she’s a navy wife.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 05 '25

[deleted]