Abstract
The individuals associated with the United States Military, including servicemembers, veterans, and military families, constitute a distinct social community that defines and characterizes itself in part, according to a categorical distinction between the military and civil sectors. This study explores the military/civilian binary with data derived from participant observation and ethnographic interviews conducted with servicemembers, recent veterans, and family members of military personnel. It describes the ways in which members of the military community currently construct and construe the distinctions between the military and civil realms, and discusses the significance and implications of this binary, particularly in terms of how it gives meaning to individuals’ lives and self-understandings, and how it animates a narrative that the military community uses to reflect on their identity and experiences as they pertain to war and military life. Specifically, participants engage with a narrative that orients around the military community's exceptionality in order to supplant stereotypes with which they do not want to identify, and to redeem hardships in which they need to find meaning.