Are we totally sure that Mr or Mrs Boston aka 111 were military men. What if they were civilian workers or something?

We are not 100% sure, no, but the evidence largely supports one or both of them being vets. The comment about the veterans ball, the flag on the shelf and the apparent ability to use power armor without receiving post-war training all point to military service for one or both genders.

It's pretty much confirmed at this point. The casting script is supported by the dialogue between the husband and wife in the game. The folded flag, which is given to veterans and their next of kin, the fact that civilians don't normally get to give keynote speeches at veteran's balls unless their related to a veteran or someone extremely important.

Your character is or was in the military.

It is of course always possible that one of them is the veteran and one is something else and depending on which character you choose to play as you'll be the vet and they'll be the lawyer or whatever else. This does not seem to be the case though due to the pre-character select of that comment about the veteran's ball.

To which the counter-argument is: well, he could just be there to talk about a brother/father or he's just nervous about meeting all wify's (the determinant vet) friends and she's reassuring him.

Personally? I'm going with female lawyer and male vet until we learn more. The other explanations aren't without merit but they seem kinda... convoluted with the admittedly limited information we do have.

theres also a folded flag on the shelf dont know if this means anything

This

I have a feeling they have the same backstory just swapped based on which you choose, pick the woman and she is the vet with the law background, pick the man and it swaps to him, i am sure he has a similar line about how well she will be received at the Veterans ball. That is how i anticipate it anyway, the one you DON'T choose wont be given much backstory.

Except that line comes before you select which six to play.

And i am sure as you switch gender and start making the woman the guy will say his line as well, what is your point? After the girl says 'you're going to be the best looking guy in the veteran ball' or whatever the exact words where, and then if you switch to editting the guy and he says "You're gonna be the most beautiful woman at the veterans ball" as he is watching her still leaves it ambiguous as to who the veteran is, all we would know is the couple is going because at least ONE is a veteran. I bet the first time you hear of any specific veteran background will be after you select your character, possibly even after they wake up.

Dunno about you but if bombs dropping I prolly hold onto someone, too.

Are you? They'll repeat the same line? Ok.

i apoligize i editted my original response to make it more clear as it came off harsher than anticipated

I keep seeing all this talk about Him. He. His. Some of us seem to be forgetting that the Player Character is not necessarily male.

I surmise PlayerChar gender selection does not occur until you opt to leave the mirror with one of them. The promo vid shows switching back and forth between the two.

Pretty much what i was saying i figured was happening, it keeps things ambiguous until the final choice is made, at that point everyone gets the same background regardless of gender

That's what Todd said: whoever you leave chargen as is the player character in every sense.

But what of the child? Typically pregnancies last 9 months. The child looks to be perhaps a month or two old. And the last official battle between the US and China occurred in January. The great war began October 23rd.

The protagonist may not have participated right up until the end of war, in fact they may have been retired for quite some time. Or it's possible that they were/are a JAG not a front line soldier (note the law degree).

Why is that terrible writing? In the real world, not everything we do in the past has meaning in our future. I used to scrub floors, but that doesn't mean the skill will be relevant later in my life. If for some reason I went to sleep and woke up in 200 years, I doubt my floor scrubbing experience would be important enough to talk about. I went to college for accounting, again, if my life were a movie or game I doubt my college major would be important enough to bring up later.

The player character had this history, whatever it was, but it's irrelevant 200 years later. Seems fine to me. What would be bad writing in my mind is if we're expected to see this seemingly idyllic life, wife, kid, house, bla bla, but no actual backstory. It makes less sense to not develop a backstory just because it won't be relevant than it does to make a backstory then never bring it up again.

And your point being? Do you think Soldiers sent to Vietnam in 1965 stayed until the end of the war? Furthermore the last battle between China and The US wasn't in January, the Gobi Campaign was in full force right up until the missiles launched. So there is absolutely no reason to assume your "Sole Survivor" was a veteran of the Anchorage Campaign.

And even if they were.... I can see the U.S military allowing a two or three month pregnant woman into power armor.

"Why should I care how many people I have to kill? I can just make MORE in my TUMMY!"

桲azumi Kato.

Come now, scrubbing floors isn't equivalent to military experience which shapes who you are as a person (skills, morals, discipline). It isn't just a job. What a ludicrous statement.

Exactly. It's a total false comparison.

I wasn't saying they are anywhere near the same. I was making a point that not all aspects of our backgrounds will matter in an event like we wake up 200 years in the future. Any history you had is irrelevant but it makes more sense to have a backstory that doesn't matter to the story than to not have one at all.

No one is saying there should be no backstory, we just don't like the amount of backstory we're given, especially the amount of characterization and choices our character is forced to make within his backstory that we had no say in.

Look, I get it. Bethesda's design choices with the prologue make it difficult to truly roleplay a lisbian, serial killer, drug addict. I can sympathize with that. I just don't think it's worth the amount of whining and crying that's being spewed onto the forums for it. It's entirely too late for Bethesda to completely change the player's backstory, to give them options, to let them set it; it's just too late so constantly whining about it isn't going to do any good.