As for the combat veteran statement, I do apologise if I came across a little prickly about it, it was more a commentary on my own experiences with people’s reactions towards those who’ve served overseas (or within their own country) and it seems to be people’s default reaction these days which I myself find more than a little sad.

Thought I best clear that up, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read here so will return and thought best not to annoy you from the get go!

With regards to the war vetaran comment – if you think about the majority of the media representations of soldiers (I give classic examples such as “Saving Private Ryan”, “Flags of our Fathers”, “An Unpopular War” (a South African collection of stories of vetarans from the Border War), and lest we forget “Apocolypse Now”), most of them portray the stereotype of the broken soldier. I guess I was working of that, most of all.

My father was a vetaran of the Border War, and while he wasn’t “broken” in the sense of being shell-shocked or suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, his experience altered his personality drastically. He spent 13 years (largely against his will – South African men in the 1970s were conscripted) in the South African Army, and he missed out on the first few years of my childhood, and almost destroyed his marriage as a result of forced service.

My point is, I don’t think you can be unaffected by experiences such as that – and I don’t think there are very many people who have leave the military with very positive experiences(and here I mean people who have seen real conflict). But that’s just me.

Perhaps I’m just getting on in years and not up with all this ‘lol internets’ speak but as you say in a text based medium language is going to be used as our primary impression of someone and first impressions count. A post or IM filled with this tripe generally makes me think that I am dealing with someone under the age of 15 or someone who was absent for the majority of their English classes. I could be totally wrong of course but if someone doesn’t take the time to clearly write what they have to say – why should I spend the time to figure out their meaning?

As for your second example and despite my own views on ‘combat veterans’ would you say that it is an indication of the world we live in today that your first thoughts of a combat veteran runs to being ‘broken’ than them being something else. Though what you say about the rest of his profile does come across as more than a little creepy when you have added your commentary to it!

Mind you I say all of this and notice that your own about page is still at the default.. but you are welcome to pull my own to pieces if you would like <– A smiley face just to clarify my own poor attempt at humour!