Maybe not that straightforward.

First off I don't think it's a targeted witch-hunt, I tend to suspect those who are most vocal about that may have gotten letters, or be expecting to.

They're doing it not because they're after vets, but because they can. They did the same with SS a number of years back. Again, because they can. I suspect there's a LOT more of this on the VA side than on the SS side, at least for commercial pilots, for the cultural and systemic reasons we've already discussed. Vets get led down the path to the water, it's up to them in the end to recognize the ethical and legal perils and not actually take a drink, or too large of a drink.

I can't really fault the FAA for focusing on a large number of likely commercial pilots, as opposed to a smaller number of likely private pilots on the SS side.

Plenty of civilians are lying on their 8500 too, but they can't catch them unless they have probable cause and a subpoena... that usually only comes from a very rare inflight incap, or more commonly a pizzed-off ex wife/GF.

Regarding mil officers in the FAA... career active duty tend to have an elevated opinion of themselves relative to reserve/guard, and it's culturally common within that crowd to denigrate those who leave for the airlines. If you're career mil and then civil service, there's also some sour grapes about airline compensation. For much of this century during the hard years, rolling your mil time over for civil service retirement credit and settling into a modest but very secure career seemed like a good bet, and I knew some folks who were pretty smug about it. But now the tables have turned, and airline pilots can be in the $500K ballpark just for flying their line... I don't think it's a witch-hunt per se, but I wouldn't necessarily be counting on a lot of brotherly love from the career AD-to-GS crowd either.