In many European countries, they used conscription in the second half of the 20th century. In Greece and Germany for example, having served the military for about 12 to 18 months is the most common experience among men of Joe's generation.

I literally had no clue my dad was in the Albanian army until I came across a photo of him in uniform. He has literally never mentioned it.

Did he also never point to a hat?

In fairness Albanians dont have access to powered flight

Not much for him to brag about, they don't exactly have a stellar won/loss record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Albania

He wasn’t the appropriate age to fight in any of those.

I didn't find out that my grandpa was in the army until he died and had a flag at his funeral

He didn't do anything of significance while he served either. He served stateside during peacetime for a couple years sitting on his lazy ass tinkering with radios in the motorpool, and joined a jump club so he could go skydiving a few times in the taxpayers' dime. Shiftless leech.

He likes to try and talk to these young vets like he knows what its like. They think he is a fucking idiot, poser. Shit Joe didnt even take advantage of when people were joining just to get college funding and didnt have to get shot at.

He could have killed a battalion of Japanese and saved the president and earned a dozen medals of honor, and be the biggest war hero in American history, and yet it would still be unbelievably obnoxious to post a selfie pointing to a hat.

Joe is the type that barely squeaked by basic training,always at the bottom of a list, then gets angry when not thanked for his service during peace time when he brings it up to strangers

I’m sure Joe contributes heavily to organizations that provide help for wounded vets and their families. Usually when guys bring up their service record all the time they’re also heavily invested in that sort of thing.

Joe was very important in the war effort. Peeling potatoes is a hard job only a selected few are qualified in doing.

Always. Also probably trying to draw up schedules for some kind of neighborhood watch program

Can confirm. Decorated combat vets are typically gracious, humble to a fault, and rarely discuss their time in the service. Servicemembers who didn't do shit behave like Joe.

Everyone with a grandpa from WW2 knows he was there but have no idea what he did because they didn't find it entertaining to tell everyone about the shit they did and saw.