nazi vets in their 80s still cause harm but people who were part of the US imperial machine dont?

Tell me where I have mentioned 80 year old men, and tell me where I have mentioned physically hurting veterans as a moral service?

To my knowledge I have only ever argued that veterans should not be accepted as leftists just because after they got back and got all the nice benefits like an education or whatever, they decided to utter the correct phrases and jargon and therefore got baptised into good leftists now. Instead I think the bare minimum is that they should materially support the victims of American wars, who do not get any benefits, who get their schools blown up actually.

Some international solidarity is the bare minimum for a leftist veteran, and not just turning around and being critical of the US military, or doing mutual aid back in AmeriKKKa.

I agree with you in general, my problem is with the moralistic framing. But largely I think the conclusion is the same. It’s an important distinction, though, for acute or other circumstances where a moralistic framing and a materialist framing have different conclusions.

Moralistic framing of this is saying veterans are a lost cause because of past action / sin. Materialist framing would say veterans might be a lost cause because they don’t have much revolutionary potential as a demographic, in my opinion, due to a variety of material and cultural influences.

But if somehow veterans as a demographic did have revolutionary potential, it would be important to recognize this and capitalize on it, rather than letting moralism cloud our judgement. Before the draft was abolished, for example, there was less selection for ideological purity, meaning a larger subsection of the demographic might be receptive to anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist sentiment. But I’m skeptical that the “poverty draft” has enough of a similar effect, even among veteran minorities. It may still be a useful long-term goal to see if we can come up with effective strategies to radicalize soldiers/veterans.