Veterans in AI Defense: A New Way to Serve

A smaller share of Americans have served in uniform than at any point in modern U.S. history—and that distance shows up in awkward rituals, shallow conversations, and, more seriously, rising mistrust between the military and the society it protects. The “thanks for your service” moment is the visible tip of a much bigger problem: civil-military relations are under strain at the exact time national security is becoming more technical, more automated, and more politically contested.

Here’s my stance: if you care about the future of U.S. defense, you should care about where veterans show up next. Not just at parades, not just on Veterans Day panels, and not just as symbols. Veterans are uniquely positioned to strengthen AI in defense and national security—especially in cybersecurity, intelligence analysis, and mission planning—because they’ve lived the tradeoffs between speed, risk, rules, and accountability.

This post reframes veteran service through a 2025 lens: an AI-enabled national security ecosystem where trust, oversight, and operational realism matter as much as the models.

The trust gap is real—and AI makes it higher-stakes

Civil-military trust isn’t a “soft” issue; it’s operational. When trust frays, everything downstream gets harder: recruitment, readiness, budgeting, the legitimacy of deployments, and public confidence in how force is used.

In late 2025, Americans have watched active-duty and reserve forces pulled into domestic law enforcement roles in multiple cities. Regardless of where you sit politically, the effect is predictable: more scrutiny on the military’s role at home, more heat on leaders, and more suspicion of institutions. Now add AI.

AI is increasingly embedded in:

• Intelligence workflows (triage, entity resolution, OSINT processing)
• Cyber defense (anomaly detection, automated response, security analytics)
• Autonomous and semi-autonomous systems (navigation, target recognition support)
• Mission planning and logistics (predictive maintenance, route optimization)

The problem is that AI introduces failure modes that many civilians—and plenty of policymakers—don’t intuitively understand: model drift, data poisoning, brittle generalization, automation bias, and hidden coupling between systems.

The more technical defense becomes, the more we need trusted translators between “what’s possible” and “what’s acceptable.” Veterans can be those translators.

This is where the Veterans Day message from Rick Landgraf lands with extra force: the burden of rebuilding trust isn’t only on civilians. Veterans can bridge the gap—especially in the AI era.

Go beyond “thanks”: build the kind of conversations that support oversight

The fastest way to improve civil-military relations is better conversations with real substance. Landgraf argues that “thanks for your service” often stops the interaction before it starts. I agree—and I’d add that the AI-driven defense moment raises the stakes.

If your organization works anywhere near defense tech, critical infrastructure, or national security consulting, here are better questions than the default script:

• “What did you learn about making decisions with incomplete information?”
• “Where did systems fail—comms, logistics, intel—and what fixed it?”
• “What parts of the mission were most constrained by rules, authorities, or escalation risk?”
• “If an AI tool had existed back then, where would it have helped—and where would it have made things worse?”

Why this matters for AI governance in national security

AI oversight fails when oversight is performative. Serious governance requires people who can explain operational tradeoffs without romanticizing them.

Veterans can contribute by translating military reality into plain language:

• What “time sensitivity” really feels like in an ops center
• Why false positives in cyber can be as damaging as false negatives
• How unclear authorities can paralyze response even when the data is perfect
• Why “human in the loop” sometimes becomes “human rubber stamp” under pressure

When veterans share these realities—patiently and without jargon—they make civilian oversight smarter rather than louder.

The veteran advantage in cybersecurity and intelligence work

Veterans bring habits that map cleanly to modern security work: discipline, accountability, teamwork, and mission focus. But the real advantage isn’t generic “leadership.” It’s something more specific: comfort operating inside constraints.

Cybersecurity and intelligence analysis are constraint-heavy domains:

• Rules of engagement and legal authorities
• Classification boundaries and need-to-know
• High consequences for mistakes
• Adversaries who adapt quickly

Veterans are often already trained to:

• Write clearly under time pressure
• Follow procedures without losing initiative
• Run checklists while still thinking creatively
• Escalate issues appropriately (and document decisions)

A practical translation: “commander’s intent” → security outcomes

In military terms, commander’s intent clarifies the “why” so teams can improvise responsibly. In cyber and AI security, that becomes:

• The business/mission outcome you’re protecting (availability, integrity, safety)
• The risk tolerance (what downtime is acceptable, what escalation is required)
• The red lines (what cannot happen—data exfiltration, civilian harm, friendly-fire targeting errors)

This mindset makes veterans effective in roles like:

• Security operations (SOC) leadership
• Threat intelligence and fusion analysis
• Incident command for cyber crises
• AI red teaming for defense applications
• Insider risk and behavioral analytics programs

Where veterans fit in AI for defense—without turning it into a slogan

Veterans can lead AI in defense and national security by being the adults in the room about failure, risk, and accountability. That doesn’t require everyone to become an ML engineer.

Here are high-impact lanes where veteran experience translates directly.

1) AI-enabled threat detection: veterans know what “signal” looks like

In intelligence and cyber, the hard part isn’t collecting data—it’s deciding what matters.

Veterans with operational or analytic backgrounds can help teams:

• Define priority intelligence requirements for model outputs
• Avoid “dashboard theater” by focusing on actionable indicators
• Pressure-test alert thresholds against real operational tempo
• Build feedback loops so models improve based on outcomes, not vibes

A simple but powerful rule I’ve seen work: If an alert doesn’t change a decision, it’s noise. Veterans tend to respect that.

2) AI in mission planning: speed matters, but restraint matters more

AI can accelerate planning—routes, resupply, ISR allocation, wargaming. But military professionals know that speed without restraint creates escalation risk.

Veterans can help set practical guardrails:

• Require explicit confidence and uncertainty reporting
• Design “pause points” where humans must re-check assumptions
• Separate recommendation from authorization in workflow design
• Build audit trails that survive investigations and after-action reviews

If you’ve ever sat through an after-action review, you know the value of an answerable record.

3) AI security: model risk is national security risk

Defense organizations increasingly treat AI systems as software. That’s a mistake. AI systems are also data supply chains, training pipelines, and continuous learning processes.

Veterans in cyber can push for basics that too many teams skip:

• Threat modeling that includes data poisoning and model inversion
• Hardening against prompt injection for LLM-enabled tools
• Monitoring for model drift when environments change
• Red-teaming that matches adversary tactics, not generic test cases

AI security isn’t just technical hygiene; it’s a credibility issue. If the public thinks defense AI is unaccountable, support erodes fast.

Civic service for veterans in 2025: show up where decisions get made

Landgraf’s core recommendation—serve where you live—applies directly to AI in national security. Most AI policy decisions that affect defense don’t happen in war rooms. They happen in procurement meetings, city councils, school boards, standards committees, and corporate risk reviews.

Here are concrete places veterans can have outsized impact:

• Local and state cyber resilience efforts (critical infrastructure, emergency management)
• Public-private incident response exercises (tabletops that include AI-enabled misinformation)
• Education and mentorship (helping students understand national security tech careers)
• Advisory boards for companies selling into government (ethics, safety, compliance)
• Veteran-to-civilian translation roles inside defense tech teams (product, ops, governance)

A 90-day “second service” plan (practical and doable)

If you’re a veteran looking to contribute without burning out, try this:

1. Weeks 1–2: Pick a lane. Cybersecurity, intelligence analysis, AI governance, or training.
2. Weeks 3–6: Join one real community. A local cyber group, veteran tech network, or public safety working group.
3. Weeks 7–10: Build one artifact. A tabletop scenario, a training brief, a risk checklist, or a mentorship plan.
4. Weeks 11–13: Ship it publicly. Present it to a board, teach it to a cohort, or run it as an exercise.

This isn’t about personal branding. It’s about building competence and trust where it’s needed.

The next generation of stewards: veterans who mentor future AI-minded officers

Landgraf closes with a forward-looking point that deserves more attention: today’s cadets and recruits will steward the profession tomorrow. In 2025, that stewardship includes AI.

Mentorship shouldn’t be vague (“work hard”). It should be specific to the AI-enabled force:

• Learn how algorithmic recommendations can distort judgment under pressure
• Practice writing requirements and evaluating vendor claims
• Understand what data quality means in real operations
• Train for degraded environments (GPS denial, comms disruption, sensor spoofing)

If you’re a veteran who’s worked with flawed systems—most of us have—you’re in a strong position to teach a healthy skepticism: respect tools, don’t worship them.

Where this goes next for the “AI in Defense & National Security” series

The AI in Defense & National Security conversation often gets stuck between hype and fear. Veterans can break that stalemate. They know the mission is real, the stakes are real, and the constraints are real.

What I want to see more of in 2026 is veterans helping build trustworthy AI—systems that are testable, auditable, resilient to adversaries, and designed with clear human accountability. That’s how you strengthen national defense infrastructure without weakening democratic legitimacy.

If you’re hiring, building, or governing AI for national security, don’t treat veteran experience as a feel-good credential. Treat it as operational due diligence.

So here’s the forward-looking question: If AI is becoming part of how the nation defends itself, who’s responsible for making sure it stays aligned with the Constitution, not just the mission?