# How and When Did These Freebees for Veterans Begin? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 11, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322 "2015-11-11T20:33:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/1 "2015-11-11T20:33:52Z")
I enjoyed my free red, white, and blue pancakes from IHop and the 15% discount from my shopping at Publix (10% for being a veteran and 5% senior discount). Many more establishments are also offering other benefits for veterans. How and when did all this begin? These benefits are all of recent vintage as I do not recall them being offered until recent years. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/2 "2015-11-11T20:58:55Z")
In my memory they started to appear after Gulf War I, the Desert Storm thing in 1991. ---
**Author:** ![Yarster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7c8e57/32.png) [@Yarster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yarster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/3 "2015-11-11T21:17:00Z")
I second what **Bill Door** said. I remember seeing them for the first time when I was in college and the first Gulf War was going on, although I don’t recall which restaurant was the first to offer discounts and freebies. At the time, the military had a nice appeal to it, and I’m sure some enterprising marketing guy thought “Hey, if I give away a free/discounted meal to a veteran, I’ll still get his whole family in who will pay full price for themselves. Also, it will create some loyalty and hopefully that veteran will come in the rest of the year with his family and preferentially eat at my restaurant”. Other businesses then see this is successful and jump on the bandwagon. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2015, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/4 "2015-11-11T23:28:46Z")
Onset of GWI as has been noted. Sorta tangentially, as I recall it was part of the soldier worship that started in the run-up to the conflict. There was general concern about the resurrection of the anti-militarism of the Vietnam conflict, and the general consensus was, “Nah, we promise to hate the game, not the player. And just to prove it, we’ll crank the soldier lovin’ up to 11.” Yellow ribbons started popping up all over the place as well. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/5 "2015-11-12T08:15:43Z")
Porn Star Gives Vets BJs For Veteran’s Day [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/pi4SF6aR5dI/maxresdefault.jpg "Porn Star Gives Vets Blowjobs For Veteran’s Day") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi4SF6aR5dI) ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/6 "2015-11-12T13:19:26Z")
The bar I hang out at offers veterans their first draft free on Veterans Day. There is always a full house. The vets get drunk and tell stories. Me and my non-vet friends buy vets drinks and listen to their stories. This has been a tradition for at least 15 years. ---
**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/7 "2015-11-12T14:36:02Z")
I think they were always “unofficially” there, in the late 70s and early 80s when senior discounts became popular, my grandfather was too young, and he’s always ask, “Got any discounts for us veterans,” and they always gave it to him. While, I’m sure they were just putting it down to goodwill, it did seem to work. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/8 "2015-11-12T14:47:32Z")
I know that veterans would get that kind of treatment after WWII, at least informally. Just wearing a uniform would get you special pricing in a lot of places. I’d bet that businesses did after WWI as well. More formally, the GI Bill provided funds for all sorts of training, not just college tuition, and lots of businesses from flight schools to photo labs offered discounts to lure in as many veterans as possible. Vietnam made being a veteran less publicly heroic, which caused the backlash that led to the overt demonstrations of patriotism later on. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/9 "2015-11-12T22:10:58Z")
I presume you’re asking about discounts/freebies offered by private businesses to veterans. Because governments have long offered benefits to veterans. Here in America, there were Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants of 100-1100 acres of land starting way back in 1776. They were actually given by individual states, because there wasn’t any national government yet. I heard from older relatives about things after WWII, like Levittown houses with cheap financing for veterans – but that turns out to have been underwritten by government funding. So it does look like such offers from private businesses (and the public advertising of them) became common sometime post-Vietnam. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-and-when-did-these-freebees-for-veterans-begin/737322/10 "2015-11-12T23:46:31Z")
They were grants of lands to Revolutionary veterans and called “patents” and they were issued by the US government to lands west of the Ohio in US territories, which were not yet states. Some of those same parcels were also claimed by French citizens through their government,