Should there be a minimum requirement to be classed as 'Veteran'

[Crash]

Bizarrely my Mrs was filling out a form last year when my son was starting school and it was asking about family stuff, ethnic background, language spoken at home and finally if there either parent was a veteran.

No idea why.

There’s a service child premium paid to the school for each pad brat that attends. A couple of hundred pounds, I believe.

 

[Stonker]

TLAs???

Well, you've never served, then

 

[Draft Dodger]

There’s a service child premium paid to the school for each pad brat that attends. A couple of hundred pounds, I believe.

Wouldn’t that just be for serving personnel? This just referred to veterans.

 

[Crash]

Wouldn’t that just be for serving personnel? This just referred to veterans.

Yes, you’re right. Perhaps the LEA or local authority makes additional resources available to children of Bally war ‘eroes.

 

[Andy Farman]

Okay I'm confused. I joined the TA aged 17 teen as I had and still have Crohn's disease. My reasoning for this was that I would be found out if I had joined the regs and I thought that if WW3 happened, we would not live long enough for me to become a liability to my TA unit. However I was found out and I had to leave one year later. After another year I had recovered enough so that I joined 6 RRF. I stayed there for 3 or 4 years after which I them transferred back into the Queens Own Yeomanry which was the unit which originally told me to leave. I stayed there for about 5 years before moving into 201 General Hospital and after a few years with them I moved once again back into QOY.

So all in all I have served from the age of 17 right up to the age of 34 with a break of about three years in all that time. In the first Gulf war they took my CVRT and sent that off to war and I would have went along with it had I been asked, but I and my unit were not. So does my service in three different units count towards me being a vet or do I need to have killed someone? Bearing in mind that only a small percentage of armed forces personal, including regulars ever see combat, even though they may have been in a war zone they were in the rear with the gear.

My neighbour has two veteran cars, neither have any bullet holes nor work tickets. You did your job and did not get binned before your were fully trained so I would say you qualify as a veteran.

 

[Joe_Private]

My neighbour has two veteran cars, neither have any bullet holes nor work tickets. You did your job and did not get binned before your were fully trained so I would say you qualify as a veteran.

Using that criteria, @MrDave would be a classic.

 

[dingerr]

do I stink of wee and Special Brew, swear profusely and talk in TLAs?

Yes.

 

[Crash]

Yes.

LOL

 

[Goatman]

Veteren does tend to conjure up images of the kind of brave blokes that have been revisiting the beaches in Normandy IMO.
Not a 45 yr old bloke who still has another good 20-30 years of work left in him...hopefully.

I have a vague memory that the word comes from Dead Roman.

For the Romans. a veteran was a legionary who had successfully sliced and diced his way through three battles, earning himself a place in the third rank - the Triarii

Ping @Belisarius

( or indeed @scalieback )

 

[Stonker]

successfully sliced and diced his way through three battles,

Technically, in cookery terms, more like making kebabs, given their tactics, but your point is a good'un

 

[Goatman]

Sharp as a tack, gladio

 

[Stonker]

Sharp as a tack, gladio

Kitchen stuff - it's very important to Romans.

Trust me on this.

 

[Crash]

In both NZ and Australia, the Returned Servicemen’s Association/League (~ RBL) were exactly that, for Servicemen who had served overseas. REMFs who never left Australasia didn’t get a look in until about 1980, if I recall correctly. So, there a veteran displaying his or her RSL/RSA badge was a veteran of military operations.

 

[Stonker]

Veteren does tend to conjure up images of the kind of brave blokes that have been revisiting the beaches in Normandy IMO.
Not a 45 yr old bloke who still has another good 20-30 years of work left in him...hopefully.

Take a look at the ages of some of those old blokes, then subtract 75 years.

Any one of them aged 93 today, was a Normandy veteran at the age of 18, never mind your positively middle-aged 45