Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1918136-20131020014707/@comment-1672596-20131020015700

Heavyweaponsguy wrote: I mean, I know he was inducted into the military in his teens, but did he have any prior war experiences when he was younger? I mean with being in a variety of foster homes, someone's bound to have placed him in war.

It's never stated whether he saw direct combat (though Gray Fox seems to imply otherwise in MG2). However, what is clear is that Solid Snake was most likely trained since an early age to act as an "insurance policy" for Cipher/The Patriots in case they failed to either bring Big Boss back or they failed in regards to framing MSF with a nuclear attack, just as Liquid Snake was trained. The PW secret call made that very clear. In other words, he effectively acted as a child soldier in the sense that he was trained by the US Military from an early age.