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This article suggests a new avenue for research on military veterans in the interwar period. Relying on a synthesis of the scholarship on the United States (which is rarely put in discussion with that on Europe), it shows that the study of public policies for veterans provides a different perspective on the broader question of their relationship with the state and civil society. To that end, the article explores the crucial role played by veterans in the growth of the U.S. welfare state between the end of the Civil War and the Second World War. It shows how their welfare benefits not only were the object of political mobilization but also how they shaped the terms of that same mobilization.