I talked to a buddy who is a Veteran, fought in Afgan & Iraq, 20yrs in the Marines. He started crying from laughter when I told him the story about the Auburn player's verbal altercation with the female student saying that she's a Veteran and her sister saying that she fought for that player's freedom, etc, etc, etc. He was like, "this made the news? There's so much shit going on right now that trumps any of that fuckin garbage, I guess they're handing out Vet cards to everyone now, regardless if they actually served real time in the military...what's next siblings and children of the Soldiers going to be considered Vets too? She must have some scandalous photos of someone high up or something to get that kind of treatment and to still want more than what she has already gotten, that's sad, because there are soldiers coming back with some real, I mean real, real problems and they aren't getting half of what she'll get...and they actually participated."
I ask him if I should consider myself a Veteran, because I don't. I told him I was AFR for 4 years, never jumped the pond, but was activated nearly every year for a few weeks at a time. He said, "you're damn sure more of a Veteran than she is." I told him I'm not going to say that I am, because I don't feel as I was.