An emic conceptualization of Veteran, “you're either one of two things; you're Captain America or you're broken”

Abstract: The Global War on Terror (GWOT) conflicts have been sustained by an all-volunteer force for over 20 years. There have been no drafts, war bond drives, nor rationing. This is a departure from previous prolonged military conflicts in U.S. history. Volunteers with veteran status are often venerated publicly to express gratitude for their voluntary military service. However, the criterion for veteran status is inconsistent. In the U.S., former military members tend to be regarded on one of two ends of a spectrum as archetypes in attempts to honor such service. On one end is the veteran hero veteran to be revered and on the other is the broken veteran to be pitied. This project is motivated by the hypothesis that the experiences of former military members are more diverse than these two absolutes and was guided by the following research question: How do former military members define veteran? This question was then broken into three questions: 1. How do former military members describe and define veteran as object? 2. How do former military members describe and define veteran as self? 3. Do these descriptions diverge/ overlap between veteran object and veteran self? This study explored the insider perspective of former military members discussing the construct veteran. Using a symbolic interactionist framework, semi-structured interviews (N=16) were utilized to ask former military members about veteran as symbol, veteran as self, and where these two veterans diverge or overlap. Six themes emerged: 1) The public describes veteran in absolutes/ tropes (object); 2) Service is the key to veteran status (object); 3) Participants are more critical of their own service (self); 4) Conceptions of veteran are coupled with war (object/self); 5) Public displays of veteran (object/self); 6) Veterans are not Monoliths (object/self). The main finding of the study is that all respondents (N=16) conceptualized veteran based on context. A gap exists between the generic veteran (object) and the contextualized veteran (self) for each participant. The emic perspectives of former military members and their varied conceptions of veteran should be considered in the development of research, policy, and resources.

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