It's anyone who served. As others have pointed out, the service decides where you go. The absolute most gung-ho Cavalry officer I know was in graduate school when GWI happened. They kept him there.Without getting into any verbal judo over the topic, (hopefully) I'd like to ask the general consensus of whether folks feel the term Veteran applies to everyone who served honorably in the military or just to those who served in a combat zone?
I always thought it was the latter, but as time goes by the term seems to be used to include all service members?
My brother was a Marine LT in the early 70's on Okinawa. He flew to Vietnam several times, and got combat pay for that month.
A friend of mine, who was later deployed to Afghanistan with a Special Forces unit, spent GWI in a trailer, writing contracts. Considered a veteran of GWI.
And a senior NCO "Commo Puke" spent two tours in Vietnam, where he went on patrols to capture and analyse NVA radio gear. The first time they rolled out, he was surrounded by a fire team. "You here to protect me?" he asked. "No, Sergeant, we're here to shoot you if it looks like we're going to be captured."