Who gets to call themselves a 'combat veteran’?

COMBAT VETERAN, pretty powerful tag.

There are many ways someone is subjected to combat, even in areas where War is not official. The question for me starts with, why the tag, is it to ensure one receives more personal credit than a Service member who has not been in Combat-Veteran as opposed to combat veteran? What of combat should be recognized and why.

Someone who has been fired at or targeted with explosive and is not shooting back-one could argue that this person has the same emotional stresses as does the security detail shooting back as the unit makes evasive maneuvers. If a drone pilot is in a safe zone and attacking targets in a combat zone do they feel the same stressor's as those in the zone?

I could go on, bottom line is that it is hard to define, for me it is about how and what the person went through similar to the Combat Action Badge-there are those who have deployed directly and never fired a round, are they combat veterans just because they are in the zone experiences whatever it is the individual experiences. Do they retain less credit because their job kept them in a TOC, TAC or other operations center, the cook, the medic, the mechanic.

War is hell, combat sucks, we’re they there, did they fight, under what circumstance, it is impossible to clearly define.

For me the tie goes to the individual. Combat veteran.

In my honest opinion, going on what my father told me. As a member of the DAV, VFW and American Legion. He served in WWII, Korea And Vietnam. The rule of thumb from WWII was in area of operation, i.e. europe or pacific theater you were considered a combat vet. All others stateside were vets. This was defined during the war. Korea and Vietnam created different issues as the were unofficial, meaning no act of war. But they still used in theater as combat vet vs stateside was just vet. Going off the historical of this I would say anyone in the theater of operations is a combat vet and all at home are just vets. As there is no real delineation now between combat vet and vet other than you had to be in theater (combat area) to join the VFW. Having served in 3 areas of combat I, consider myself a combat veteran. I really could careless what others think. As to politicians they all lie..... lol. Thanks for the thought provoking article MAJ Dale E. Wilson, Ph.D..

3:00 am, April 10, 1970, the Mai Loc Special Forces compound was overrun by a company size unit of NVA regulars. The Special Forces and Combat Engineer unit personnel on the compound were engaged in close quarters combat until two helicopter gun ships, Puff, and a company of armored cav came to the rescue. Four combat engineers were killed, five wounded. I don't know the stats for the SF personnel, but I do know at least one was killed. All of the militiary personnel that survived that engagement can certainly be called "combat veteras". I know this for a fact, I was there, I was one of the wounded.