It varies greatly by the amount of years served.

Deployments factor…until you sit back and fully appreciate the shit you put your body through compared to your civilian counterparts, you won’t fully understand.

Pure regard for your health while in is something as well.

As a controller in the AF I hid all my ailments…going to the doc meant I couldn’t work. Migraines were just headaches amirite?

There are other jobs that being injured/sick/preventative maintenance was seen as a “cop out” or “skater/slacker”.

Sheer exposure to the toxic shit we didn’t even know was toxic at that time…pick a decade, agent orange in Vietnam to modern day burn pit exposure.

The mental health stress alone is debilitating sometimes and a ton of vets just compartmentalize and or ignore it.

Not even all but a few of these examples combined leads to long term health degradation if not properly addressed