@tmdb43737777 said:

He claims to have spent time in southeast Asia, although the words vietnam and vietnam War are never mentioned in the movie. Ricky Butler calls him Lieutenant, but Art also calls him captain at one point. During the invasion of the Klopecks' house, he is wearing Tiger Stripe camos and a Green Beret, both of which are indicative of Special Forces. Despite these details, no insignia is ever seen, and there is never any mention of any unit that Rumsfeld might have belonged to. He is always seen in some type of military clothing and carrying military issue equipment and accessories. Was he really a badass veteran before settling down in the burbs, or is he just a wannabe Soldier-of-Fortune-reading gun nut?

I think he's a wannabe.

I've met several Vietnam War vets. They never talked about the War - what they saw, what they did... and they certainly don't relive any of it by glorifying dressing up in fatigues and equipment, etc. They were traumarized and disillusioned and conflicted.

The movie is satirizing the stereotypical suburbanites — busy-bodies, keeping up with the Joneses, competing for best-kept front lawns, shoving their noses over backyard fences and generally eith little better to do than minding other people's business. Any of us who have had the misfortune of living in a suburb has met all the characters in this movie, including the obsessed war-monger whose closest brush with a uniform might have been boy scouts.