Posted on May 6, 2014
Should veteran status be reserved for those who have deployed?
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This one has come up a lot in conversations with my peers and Soldiers: Should you be allowed to claim veterans status if you have never deployed?
Personally, I'm an ROTC graduate who chose to go straight into the ARNG in 2011, knowing full well that my chances to deploy would be next to none with the changing op tempo. Realistically, had I been actively searching out a deployment the whole time, I still may not have gotten one. I'm sure there are Soldiers out there who served honorably in a reserve component without deploying, despite their best efforts. So, for example, should a Soldier who completed basic training, had a clean service record, excelled in their peer group, but ultimately served 10 years as a reservist with no deployment and less than 180 days on non-ADT active service be prevented from calling themselves a veteran?
I have my own thoughts, but I'm more interesting in hearing your opinions. For clarification, I'm speaking more towards the legal definition of veterans status - even if the laws were changed here, there would still be an immense difference between a legal veteran and a legal veteran with several deployments, combat experience, decades on active duty, or a combination of all three.
Personally, I'm an ROTC graduate who chose to go straight into the ARNG in 2011, knowing full well that my chances to deploy would be next to none with the changing op tempo. Realistically, had I been actively searching out a deployment the whole time, I still may not have gotten one. I'm sure there are Soldiers out there who served honorably in a reserve component without deploying, despite their best efforts. So, for example, should a Soldier who completed basic training, had a clean service record, excelled in their peer group, but ultimately served 10 years as a reservist with no deployment and less than 180 days on non-ADT active service be prevented from calling themselves a veteran?
I have my own thoughts, but I'm more interesting in hearing your opinions. For clarification, I'm speaking more towards the legal definition of veterans status - even if the laws were changed here, there would still be an immense difference between a legal veteran and a legal veteran with several deployments, combat experience, decades on active duty, or a combination of all three.
Reserves
Army National Guard
Deployment
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 678
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Since I served on active duty short ten years that makes me a veteran and it was all peacetime service. I also completed enough reserve time to retire from the reserves. I am a veteran. The active and reservists that deploy to combat zones are combat vets. Simple enough to me the reservists that do not deploy are veterans but don't get the bennies just vets in name only.
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I believe anyone who finishes their contract with an honorable discharge should have veteran status. Especially if you put your 20 years in. I'm in the guard. I'm on my second contract and haven't been deployed. I'm going to to put my 20 in.
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Also don't get mad at the VFW if you can't join they aren't saying your not a veteran but your not a veteran of a foreign war
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You are a veteran in my book however that does not give you the right to tell a combat veteran how you would have done it if you where there love ya man
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Anyone who signed on the dotted line and made it out of boot or didn't get a dishonorable discharge is a vet. Don't let anyone tell you different.
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You signed that dotted line and put your life on the line. Yes, you are considered a veteran in my book. This should not even be considered questionable. God bless our veterans at home and abroad.
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Nope, a veteran who served honorably is a veteran with all the rights that represents. Period. No argument. To claim otherwise is self serving. I spent a total of 17 years deployed overseas from Vietnam era until post Desert Storm and that doesn't make me any more a veteran than someone who served honorably for 4 or 6 years stateside.
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17 years old and I gave my life over to Uncle Sam. He got to decide what I did after that every day for dive years. The old maxim holds that anything you want to do you don't get to, and anything you don't want to do, you have to. If you served.... you're a veteran period. Those in combat did do more. They may or may not have had some say in it.
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