A friend is a vet and former pro athlete was surprised that IM asked him when registering if he is a US military veteran but then didn't offer a veteran discount. He felt IM was using his vet status in an exploitative manner. He wrote them and they confirmed that they do not offer veteran discounts.

Anyone else experience this? Any opinions?

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EDIT to paste a later comment I made up front:

we as a society largely give vets discounts because, I’ll argue, we (we used as a social construct) implicitly recognize that our foreign policy has always stood to conserve and obtain resources that better our national economy on the backs and sometimes the lives of military vets. [even vets who do not partake in heroics contribute to our economy in this way, and our economy benefits for years after they exit the military]. ...

IM exploits the social contract I just explained with reference to military vets by announcing the vet at incredible volume at the finish line and in marketing material - simple appreciation would be a handshake and face to face words spoken. The emotion we feel with regard to that social contract is monetizeable, and it’s one thing for that sort of manipulation to take place in an advertisement with actors, it’s another to use real people during that exploitive manipulation, people who simply checked a box saying, ‘yes, I am a military veteran’ as innocently as checking their t-shirt size.

to be clear, i don't "want" this to be anything other than what it organically is and naturally becomes. whoever is here is welcome. if that's 80 percent american or 80 percent non-american, either way's okay by me.

OK, fair enough we have a triathlon forum frequented by people who can write in English from all over the world, with a majority likely from the US, talking about a Chinese corporation not giving discounts to military veterans. The events that the Chinese corporation runs are in something like 50 countries and the military veterans may be racing in their home country or another country. So what should the corporation do?

Once we take the framework of the discussion outside of a US only setting it gets more complicated (both when running an international corp and on a forum where there are people from around the world). I would be quite happy to give up a Cdn military vet discount at IM Tremblant so that Dominique Piche does not have to give out the discount to the vet from the People's Republic.

Or you give home country vets discounts at home country races, but then what about fire fighters, policemen, politicians, teachers, social workers etc who also serve society in a substantial way without whose service societies fall apart. I don't really see why military service is more special than all these other honourable professions.

There is a bit of a difference to say it's a Chinese Company. //

Here is my question about all of this discussion, has anything changed from when it was owned by all the other owners? Is there some "new" program in place, or one that was eliminated?


I recall that there is a military division at Kona, that has been going on since the early days, although it has morphed no doubt. Are there military divisions at any other races??