It has one more syllable than ‘warfighter’, which also doesn’t do any of the things you said.

I'm not sure how much more clear warfighter could be. "One who fights wars."

Service member is extremely vague. "A member of a service."

Growing up, "the service" was synonymous with "the military" among my grandparents who, y'know, fought in WWII

	▲	jltsiren 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The world wars were an unusual period. When I grew up, "veteran" usually meant an old man. Most men in my grandparents' generation had seen combat.

falcor84 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Except for extreme periods in history (that I hope we can avoid), most service members don't end up directly participating in a war.