How Do Those Who Have Served Deserve to Be Treated? Military Veterans in the U.K. Social Security System

Military service has often been a basis for civilian welfare entitlements. If mass wartime service justified collective provision, it is now suggested professional militaries have been co-opted to support reformed welfare models in which entitlement is increasingly conditional on individuals’ commitment, discipline, and responsibility. “Forces Covenants” which explicitly connect the dedication and contribution of service to state assistance, symbolically re-enforce this shift. The U.K. state operates a highly conditional civilian social security system, and an active Armed Forces Covenant agenda. This article assesses the extent to which U.K. veterans who also claimed social security benefits support or reject the principles of conditionality. It contends military service continues to inform values they believe civilian services should follow. Although some align with conditional ideas of entitlement, others are at odds. This analysis adds to the understandings of contemporary welfare and the role of military identities after service.