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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35654
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35654
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Don't focus on him being a "veteran". Yes, he was in a war, blah blah. You don't ever have to use the word "veteran."

If you do, have **him** use it to game the system or seek sympathy; even veterans hate a cheat.

I was in the military, I don't ever refer to myself as a veteran unless it is a formal requirement in a grant or application. I usually leave it off my CV, if I am required to put it on (for some government contracts) I say I served from 19xx to 19xy as a [profession] in the [service].

You offend "veterans" if your character is used as a representative of "veterans". Don't give that impression, all actual veterans know that the people they served with range anywhere on the spectrum of cool to cruel, and no two soldiers are alike.

So make your guy unique, don't hold him up as a "veteran" but as one of the many jerks veterans know that joined up in the hope of killing somebody as part of the "job", for the bragging rights of having taken a life (or lives), the assholes carving notches and showing them off and laughing about it.

Move him far from the "honorable service" veteran, don't call him a veteran, and veterans will not identify with him. (except the psychopaths, and they will just like him.)

Original score: 28