What causes a Service Member to be a combat vet?

For awhile now, we have seen discussion after discussion debating the whole combat Veteran v. non-combat Veteran question. I have been very vocal in my stance that it really doesn't matter and to drive a wedge into our very own population only hurts the public's view of the military and what we do.

While thinking about this topic and trying to get into words a good post for this site, I came across an article written and posted on one of my favorite blogs; Task and Purpose. After reading the article several times, I feel the author captured exactly what I been thinking. As the author points out, a majority of people think that a "combat Veteran" is one that served and was within range of small arms fire. For those of that served in support of operations in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, we are all to familiar with the enemy's tactics of not engaging us in a fight where they are easily seen. Sure, we did some street to street fighting where you could point and say "There's one." But the majority of us fought unseen enemies. IEDs, indirect fire, dead animals rigged with H.E. rounds became the new face of the enemy.

So why do we keep driving a wedge between ourselves? We all, at one time in, stood up, raised our right hands, repeated the same oath and signed a blank check made out to our nation.