Not all veterans are Rambos.

 Veterans are quite often misunderstood. All being a veteran means is that you served in one of the armed services. That's all it means.

A lot of people look at veterans with a certain mistique. They think they are superman or battle hardened tough guys or heroes. Although many are, most are not. 

Anyone that understands war by extension has to understand logistics and anyone that understands military logistics understands that for every person in the field carrying a weapon there are about 9 people supporting him. 

When you put a specific campaign or war in front of the term 'veteran' it paints another picture that may be incomplete. Vietnam veterans had a reputation of being battle hardened fighters and of course, many were. Others were support soldiers. 

While the Army and Marines do teach everyone to fire a service rifle, there are a Navy and Air Force veterans that have never shot a gun in their lives, in service or out. Their jobs didn't require it. Yet the public assumes that all veterans are dead shots. 

I personally know of one Marine Vietnam veteran that never fired a shot and only carried a weapon when he got assigned to guard duty guarding whatever for his entire Vietnam tour. He was a payroll clerk. He's a veteran and served honorably.

I know another Navy veteran that was never assigned within several hundred miles of the water. He was a repaiman at Crane Navy depot in Indiana repairing electronics for weapons systems his whole enlistment. Now one of his annoyances is having to explain he knows nothing about ships when people assume he sailed the seven seas simply because he was in the Navy.

Another Marine I know served a tour in Iraq as a helicopter mechanic and reports to never having fired a shot in anger. He did say his base was mortared a couple of times, though. During the mortaring he did what everyone else did. He jumped into a hole and kept down until the mortaring stopped. The infantry was sent out to deal with it.

In short, a lot of people expect a lot of things out of veterans that they can't live up to. 

Stop and think before you point at a veteran and assume anything.

All the time I hear, someone say, "I wonder what the veterans are going to do if trouble erupts?" of "The veterans will show 'em!" I know of one vet that told me someone handed him a pistol and asked him if it was loaded. He had never handled a pistol before but reports he did figure it out and unloaded it based on what he had seen on TV.

That's probably going to depend on the veteran himself. While many will bring useful skills to the table I'd say the majority will bring the same skills an average citizen will.