In my line of work, I get the chance to interact with many veterans. Some were in MI and some know some people who were high up in MI. These higher-level people know the people many people believe are part of the Q team.
To the best of my knowledge, they have not ever asked them if Q is real, probably because they are smart enough to know they would not be told the truth by people on the team or because they don’t know the people quite well enough to ask them or don’t want to put them on the spot, but here is what I have basically been told by the people who know people who know people who might be part of Q:
Q is the sort of thing they would come up with.