Abstract
Military veterans face negative and positive exposures uniquely related to service, including trauma from combat, increased educational opportunities and resilience from service experience. The literature provides mixed findings on whether veterans have better or worse mental well-being in later life compared to civilians, partially because these exposures are often unmeasured. Increased education and resilience among veterans are theorized to be unique pathways through which military service benefits long term well-being, but little empirical work addresses these mechanisms. We examine the roles education and resilience play in mental health among aging U.S. veterans, controlling for early life and service related exposures while accounting for selection into service. Using the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) 2013 Veterans Mail Survey and a matched civilian comparison sample, we examine depressive symptom trajectories of older veterans and civilians. First, we find significantly higher levels of education, resilience, and well-being among older veterans compared to civilians, net of early life and service related exposures. We find that education and resilience independently mediate a substantial portion of increased well-being among veterans. The relevance of these findings for veterans and nonveterans in both early and late older adulthood will be discussed, along with implications for more recent cohorts.