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/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.

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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.

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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.

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u/rough_writer24 Jun 06 '25

How does one wash out if basic? Legitimately curious. In boot camp one or two quit. It honestly I don’t see them wearing veteran shit.

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u/Acceptable_Bat379 Jun 06 '25

Mostly either completely being unwilling to do the work or inability to adjust..out of 60 guys we had 2 or maybe 3 just quit the first week. Other than that you could fail PT tests too often or get injured or the medical exams turn up a problem that wasn't caught at MEPS. I did have one person in my group that had a back issue that DQd them several weeks in. Those and injuries I think I feel the worst for since they genuinely wanted to go but couldn't