A majority of younger veterans said they feel uncomfortable when they are told “thank you for your service,” a new poll found.
Ahead of Veterans Day on Saturday, a survey found disparities between young military members and their older counterparts in how they prefer to be recognized for their service.
Among younger military members and veterans — age 18 to 29 — 70 percent said they feel uncomfortable or awkward when they are thanked for their service. Only 24 percent of older members, 65 years and up, say the same, the Endeavor Analytics and YouGov poll found.
“This data shows that military service members and our veterans want Americans to go beyond small talk to connect with them on a deeper level, including learning more about their service, honoring each veteran’s service in ways in which they feel comfortable talking about it,” Robert F. Whittle Jr., retired Army major general and United Services Automobile Association (USAA) chief of staff, said in a statement.
Vet here. I give you my blessing. 😉 I’m okay when it comes from people genuinely, but when it comes from the employee at Lowe’s, it means absolutely nothing, regardless - so I usually just say “no thank you”. And I think people only do it because marketing in the early 2000s really pushed that shit. When I got back in 2005, people in the airport started an applause and some old greasy guy grabbed my arm and took my hand to shake it. I hated every second of it. I wished the building would have collapsed on them. I kept thinking, I wonder if they would be so quick to applaud us if they saw half the pictures I had taken. I deleted every picture I had and exorcized those SD cards within days. And the only thing outside of my own head that reminds me of the horrible shit we did is those fucking bobbleheads and their incessant gratuity.
That said, I did get the third degree from a Vietnam vet once because, he “never got thanked” for his service, “they just called us babykillers”. Which I thought was funny, because when I was shipping out, a young adolescent saw us in uniform and yelled, “babykillers!”, to which I responded, “wrong war buddy”, and my platoon mates laughed. So I suppose getting empty, ignorant valor is better than misdirected vitriol.
Either way, fuck nationalists.