This just came to me. It's funny how every time a show or movie features a veteran they're always a combat vet and and a grunt or spec-ops at that. You never see a vet that's from any of the other combat arms, much less one that had a non-combat/support MOS (job field). No admin types, no cooks, mechanics, radar operators, etc. Always a grunt or SEAL, Special Forces, Delta, etc. who's seen action and this was even before Iraq and Afghanistan when combat vets were less common.
Amen.
I was an Ordnance officer in heavy mech units. I can count my good service stories on one hand (three less normal landings in helicopters than I should have, getting shot by a Marine on a training exercise which only needed a band-aid as it was such a light graze from the bullet but ruined a good pair of boots I
just broke in) and though I'm still bummed about the solider I lost and the death notifications I made to young wives (one of the few things that war movies get right, I found out, the hard way), they were all stateside training or off duty accidents.
Oh, I also drag-raced an M1 tank against Bradley in my motor pool (I won behind the controls of the Abrams), but nobody else knew about that at the time, and that was ages ago.
I was working toward going for SF when I found I wasn't built for the running, and I soon decided to get out from that and my wife hating being an Army officer's wife.
Now, all that said, anyone with measurable military training can use it when needed. You never forget some of that stuff. I knew a WW2 vet in the 90s who had a home invasion robbery happen and he instantly recalled the house-to-house fighting in Germany at the end of the war, and used that experience to quickly
end his attackers.
I'd put even a National Guard postal unit veteran (yes, there is such a thing, I saw such a unit at Fort Polk once) against a civilian with no training at all, in a time of crisis.
Man and woman looking at each other telling each other how much they hate they feel for one another, than kiss and make love.
As if that happens in real life.
Yeah, I've never understood that. Think of all the people over the years who've misunderstood someone hating them for this, instead, with likely never any good outcome!