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This article examines protest, petitioning, lawsuits, open letters, blogging, and other forms of activism by Chinese veterans. Moving beyond images of heroic soldiers in the official media, and the near absence of reporting on veterans' problems, we draw mainly on blog posts and military websites where veterans share their experiences of post-army life. We find that, overall, veterans have had difficulty adjusting to the economic, social, cultural, and political changes of the reform era, with many of them finding themselves left behind as other groups have leapt ahead. Veterans complain about poverty, unresolved medical problems, and lack of respect for their contributions to the nation. Not a few have experienced terrible indignities at the hands of security officials and a leadership that is bent on preventing any interest group formation that might ameliorate veterans' problems.

What drives retired military officers in China toward contention? Decades of research on protest has produced little on veterans' collection action, and even less on that by ex-officers. Newspaper reports, police journals, and veterans' blogs show that contention by Chinese former officers (ranging from occupying government compounds to marches, mass petitioning, open letters, and class action lawsuits) is the result of bad luck in post-military job assignments, a fragmented political system that makes it difficult to ensure that pensions and other benefits reach retirees, and pervasive corruption that leads ex-officers to feel that local officials have embezzled funds meant for them. Contention by former officers typically uses military rhetoric and builds on military experiences, even for former officers who were employed in civilian jobs for many years. Although contention by ex-officers is not likely to rock the state, it says much about how "sticky" military identities are, where veterans fit in the political landscape, Leninist civil–military relations, and the treatment that old soldiers receive in a fast changing socioeconomic order.