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Comment by ryanmarsh | Hacker News Reader

I would say my experience has been the reverse. In Texas you can pretty much assume most folks support the troops and veterans. The only "discrimination" I've received as a vet was in SV. I don't know if you'd call it discrimination though, mainly just people disgusted with me (or horrified?) for fighting in "Bush's war".

I had a woman just flat out turn on her heels and walk away from me upon mention of my service (I forget how it was related to the conversation). We were having a professional conversation at a conference. I've gotten looks of disgust from students (I teach various programming classes) when I tie something back to a lesson I learned in the military. Whatever.

That stuff doesn't affect me. It's more a reflection on them than it is me.

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That is interesting. A lot of my family served in the military, including both my parents. I was under the impression that there was a complete 180 from the Vietnam era where people blamed draftees for serving. I thought there was enthusiastic support for individual soldiers, but overwhelming condemnation for the quagmire we face in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is crazy to me that people had negative reactions to your military experience. I think it points to a certain stratification of society that people would not have family members or friends in the military to help them empathize.

The broad societal assault on vets is over. But it still happens in some areas and from some subgroups.

I think you and solotronics are in agreement.

> one of them moved to Dallas from S.V. [emphasis added]

Where is S.V.?

Silicon Valley. Usually no dots between the letters like that but I was quoting another poster.

Silicon Valley, located in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay.

The Bay Area area is noted for anti-military sentiment, especially given the history of UC Berkeley during the time of the Vietnam War. Naturally, some of this spills over into anti-veteran bigotry.

Which is curious since a LOT of the technology they develop is done under gigantic government contracts.

Apparently few people remember back in the 80's when the biggest SV employer was Lockheed Missiles and Space who developed weapons for the DOD.

More recently you can point fingers at the complacency of Facebook, Google and Yahoo who were willing participants in the PRISM scandal.

I mean internet WAS basically created by DARPA. The irony.

The WWII and Cold War technology arms race (in which Silicon Valley got its start) is intellectually interesting and easily justified by clear existential threats to our civilization, whose emotional content we we weren't around for.

US foreign policy since then has been... murkier. I don't think the Bay Area really has a position on soldiers, so much as it opposes the current and previous few wars.

This was posted here, but worth a repost as you might be interested. Most SV VC money, traced back far enough, goes straight to DoD.

https://steveblank.com/secret-history/

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