Questions to never ask a vet:
1. “You’re a mother/wife/father/husband, how could you leave your family while you were deployed?”
2. “Do you have post-traumatic stress disorder?”
3. “What’s the worst thing that happened to you over there?”
4. “Have you ever killed anyone?”
At the first family reunion when I got back I was introduced to everyone as a retiring vet. The lady who did the intro asked me while in front of everyone “Did you see any action?”
I looked at her dumbfounded at first and collected my thoughts enough to say, “It was interesting.”
I've been asked that a couple of times. I usually answer "Not until just now."
I remember my buddies asking me “how many people did you kill?” And “what did it feel like, to kill somebody?” when I got back from my first tour in Vietnam. I just stared at them and didn’t answer. They weren’t anyone I wanted to deal with anymore.
I also remember some woman on the periphery of an anti war demonstration yelling at me “I’ll never let my son join the Marines!” (I was in uniform). I told her that I didn’t ask my mother when I joined and that when her son became a man, he won’t ask either. Really annoyed her.