Guys. Maybe they're both veterans. I literally know a man who's parents met while stationed together in Alaska in the US Army.
When people keep asking what your character did in the military, maybe that depends on your SPECIAL. High END and AGI, probably assume you were Infantry. High CHA, you could be linguistics, high INT, military scientist, high PER, bomb spotter. (Low CHA, High STR, END and AGI, assume were a Drill Sergeant.)
But seriously, we need to stop speculating so specifically. People keep coming up with one bottlenecked idea and just going crazy with it.

We are five months and ten days from the release date, and these people are starved for scuttlebutt. It's only going to get worse the closer we get.

It's fun to speculate, to see how wrong or right we are for when the game actually comes out.

I agree. But people get these obscure ideas and basically demand that it is how the game must go.

And those are the people who should not be taken seriously. God I hate those people...

I suspect beth is gonna leave the exact details of our characters military background vague so people are free to fill in there own details.

In the end the veteran background was most likely chosen because there will most likeky not be any skills or similar measuring our characters profincincy with weapons. So the background allows beth to make iur pc good with all weapon by default.

Well, there's one thing you can be sure of: The protagonist will be the centre of the universe.

Whatever man, live and let live. If people wanna build fairy tale dream castles in their minds it has very little to do with you.

This. Just this 100%.

131 and 1/2 days, but who's counting?

I doubt they would implement such a mechanic. If that Museum of Freedom mission happens early in the story, you might select your military background then. There are supposed to be several different ways to handle it, and maybe your character will tell Preston Garvey something like, "I was an engineer", if they choose a repair option, or, "I was mechanized infantry", if you choose a direct power-armored assault.

"But seriously, we need to stop speculating so specifically. People keep coming up with one bottlenecked idea and just going crazy with it."

Stop overspeculating? And don't get butthurt when people counter said speculating? On the bethforums?????

There's a better chance of the moon being the right testicle of a giant, invisible space-whale than that happening XD

Actually, I find it quite entertaining to read all those tinfoil-hat-speculations that pop up from time to time