The only person here who exaggerates is you, and it is as I said, not what you claim it to be.. You place too much importance to what you hear as long as it is what you want to hear. Your relatives being there doesn't give you a special connection. If it does, nearly all of us are special. I have been in a war, and my only claim to fame is noting that the South Vietnamese Civilians didn't care who won. If they did, they would all be wearing military uniforms. Same crap is going on in the current wars. Sorry you can't see that ...
It has been my experience that the more war a person has seen up front and personal, the less they want to talk about it with people who weren't there. My grandfather was there on D-day, and he won't talk about it to anyone who wasn't a part of it.
A coworker was a dog handler, in country Vietnam, for part of his tour, and the rest of his tour was spent climbing in caves with nothing but a .45. That is all I know, since he didn't like talking about it at all. As little action as I have seen, I am practically a non-combatant. I carried ammo for others, and had a rocket explode nearby once, that is as close as I got.
When you hear someone spending a lot of time talking about it, they might just be a phony...