The US has this weird hero worship thing for vets. It is an indoctrinated reflex for people to say “thank you for your service”. It is so prevalent that a lot of vets, especially younger ones, even find it tiresome.
Another thing is that by treating soldiers and veterans as special, the Capitalist class helps assure their loyalty. Veterans have more social safety nets for this reason as it helps keep them from becoming lumpen-proletariat or otherwise being as exposed to the harsher conditions of Capitalism.
The ruling classes have learned via history that the military is its own sort of faction, and keeping that faction happy is often the difference between staying in power or not. Veterans are included in that, because active duty want to know they’ll be looked after when they finish, plus veterans leave the military with training particularly suited toward removing people from power.
The US has this weird hero worship thing for vets. It is an indoctrinated reflex for people to say “thank you for your service”. It is so prevalent that a lot of vets, especially younger ones, even find it tiresome.
Another thing is that by treating soldiers and veterans as special, the Capitalist class helps assure their loyalty. Veterans have more social safety nets for this reason as it helps keep them from becoming lumpen-proletariat or otherwise being as exposed to the harsher conditions of Capitalism.
The ruling classes have learned via history that the military is its own sort of faction, and keeping that faction happy is often the difference between staying in power or not. Veterans are included in that, because active duty want to know they’ll be looked after when they finish, plus veterans leave the military with training particularly suited toward removing people from power.