https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4339

The reason that no one involved in the game's development objected to the word "warfighter" is that the U.S. Defense Department has used "warfighter" as a standard term for military personnel since the late 1980s or early 1990s: Thus Earl L. Wiener et al., Eds. Human Factors in Aviation, 1988

Warfighter is literally the Department of War's Amazonian or Googler or any other cringe term you'd see in company PR or recruiting material.

It isn't a new thing at all, and the term has been around for a while. I was an Infantryman from 05-08 and heard it back then. I have also more recently been a defense contractor. I don't think members of the military prefer any title, honestly. In the most broad sense, good terms are soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines. Defense Contractors constantly refer to the military as "warfighter" and have for a while. In short, nobody in the military is going to flinch one way or the other if you use either term. Just don't call marines anything but marines.

They want to make sure the whole Diversity of our armed forces (soldiers, sailors, marines, …) feel an Equitable and Inclusive share of the mention.

"Warfighters" has been used for decades to describe service members, though usage picked up (in my experience) some time in the late 00s or 2010s. It's actually pretty common to describe "serving the warfighter" for all the all the missions that support combat roles but aren't combat roles themselves.

I’ve always heard this term in use from a defense contractor

It's a term that's been used at least back to the Bush 43 administration, probably older than that.

I always associate it with fighter aircraft

It's been controversial since 2002: https://bracingviews.com/2024/08/03/generation-warfighter-ne...

It has been in use for at least a decade, since the Obama administration if not earlier.

We have soldiers, sailors, airman/women, Marines (who really do not like being called soldiers), Coast Guardsman/women, and now the Space Force. Granted, I do not know why "service member" did not catch on. Perhaps because "warfighter" is a bit shorter.

Around the time Hegseth was appointed secretary of war. It's a trump thing.

Edit: so it's been around for longer, but the Trump regime seems to love it bigly so I'm sticking with my observation.

It's a trump regime thing.

It's a Hegseth malapropism, which is why it's slightly disturbing that Dario continues to use it.

edit: To be clear, Hegseth didn't create it, merely has popularized its use recently. Eg his speech at Quantico last Sept