> Ah. Yes, that was what I was trying to say,
but for some reason I couldn't quite put it into
words.
>
> winter"Well, except for the words I made up
myself, and you probably don't know
those"mute

So for example, if a young man was drafted to
fight in Vietnam, went through boot camp and
everything, went over, fought bravely but was
injured in his first and only battle and had to
have his legs amputated and got sent back
home...you'd say he wasn't a veteran?

Is that farfetched? I don't know. Is it a run-on
sentence? Probably.

Mirriam Webster defines "veteran" as:

--1 a : an old soldier of long service b : a
former member of the armed forces; 2 : a
person of long experience in some occupation
or skill (as politics or the arts)--

It seems to me that my country would use the
--1 b-- definition and therefore my hypothetical
soldier would be considered a veteran. He
would be entitled to all the honor and all the
benefits of that distinction, even though he
only fought in one battle of one war.

Do we have any real veterans reading this
now? It'd be nice to get the low-down from
someone who knows for certain.

Gri"Am I being argumentative?"shny