Veteran
A person who has come back from a war or a long campaign — someone carrying experience the people around them have not had.
A veteran in a dream is the dream's image of a person who has come back from a campaign carrying experience the people around them have not been through. The veteran is home; the veteran is also still partly elsewhere. The dream brings the veteran when someone in your life — possibly you — has returned from a hard passage and is among people who did not go, and the translation of the experience is its own work. A veteran given the room to tell what they need to tell is the dream affirming the honest reintegration. A veteran whose silence is treated as recovery is the dream noting that the campaign is still being carried, and the household has decided not to ask.