Man, that’s the most honest and accurate statement about that situation I’ve ever heard
To further complicate matters you have people like my wife who was a commissioned officer in one of the uniform services that is not a military/combat service
Those would be USPHS (US Public Health Service) and NOAA (the weather and ocean folks)
Both these services wear Navy uniforms with different service emblems, and they use Navy rank
She was never expected to be deployed into combat but was actually deployed stateside on a couple of occasions for natural disasters or to fill in for actual military medical officers that were deployed to combat zones
She did 25 years, was injured twice on duty, and retired with the same pension, medical, privileges, etc
She has a 100% VA disability rating and has Disabled Veteran plates
That in and of itself is very misleading, and she has had people give her crap about “posing” as a “veteran”
The irony of that is there are plenty of military people out there who were injured stateside and never deployed anywhere that are disabled veterans
I guess the distinction is my wife had almost a zero percent chance of going to a war zone so some veterans feel she isn’t entitled to the same status
The further irony is that USPHS officers HAVE deployed to places like Haiti following earthquakes and storms and you want to talk about a war zone?
They deployed to Katrina and had to have National Guard escorts in some areas
Yeah, not quite Mosul or Baghdad but getting shot by a looter still counts as a sucky day
Sorry, time to climb down off my soapbox
I’ll end by saying my wife went to some really bad duty stations, wore her body out, achieved a lot, and I’m proud of her
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
