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.

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.

One of my things is that My brothers were both Nam Vets having been there. Ron as an Infantryman he got caught stealing or something in 67 Judge said Army or Jail Doug an MP (Yeah we had a cop in the family) but both were in Nam. My best friends Dad was in Nam as an Infantryman, and I have seen him get angry with guys wearing Nam vet hats who after speaking to them he would call them liar to their face. I now understand the difference real Nam vets Vs Era vets. I have levels I guess which I look at vets everyone deployed gets a patch. That to me means you were there or somewhere that was a war location or support site. An Infantry combat vet has been engaged and engaged in enemy contact that is how the CIB was awarded. But of course, that is not how things have always been done. On my CIB orders I am the only name on them, and it details why the CIB was awarded. There are many soldiers that are wearing CIB awards and may or may not have met the letter of the law. The CAB which I am not as familiar with I can only say I have heard and seen. A commander tell his S1 that he wanted a Blanket order for the unit to receive a CAB. The S1 told the commander that only two people were involved in the incident the commander said "I do not care." He wanted a CAB and was going to ride the coat tails of the two soldiers to get it. The bottom line is when it comes to someone saying "I am a Combat Vet" I take it with a grain of salt the real ones will reveal the fakes and the fakes will always overstep their selves. It's an inside version of stolen valor, I think. Not many people want to really be Infantry, but they love our stories and the pretties on our uniforms