They don’t brag about their combat experience. They wouldn’t talk to you about it. In fact they’d be loathe to claim advantage online or socially or otherwise. They are (were) fine men.
The only advantage combat service gives if it can be called that is knowing what's real and what's false about this world we occupy.
If those acquaintances of yours were combat veterans, I don't doubt that they were fine men.
It's people like you that I have doubts about.