Those examples are 100% true. Honoring someone who we directly benefit from; i.e. a supporter of Torah, is hakaras hatov. Voting too, is hakaras hatov because we have a debt to this country allowing us to be free to practice Torah (something not true of the “jewish” state of israel). None of that applies to giving money to veterans who indirectly help in maintaining this country without there being an element of darchei sholom or kidush hashem.
You and AAQ keep conflating honoring with lo sichanem. Lo sichanem means you can’t give goyim presents. Rav Moshe was speaking about honoring them, although in his specific case presenting them with a gift would be allowed because it’s directly tied to what he did for the yeshiva/shul whatever he helped.
Also, we would be allowed to give presents to people like police officers or ofhers that we rely on to actively keep us safe, both because of hakaras hatov and because it’s not “chinam”, just to show them favor – we stand to gain by building relationships with these people in the community.
None of these factors apply to random veterans, especially considering there has not been a war that has threatened American freedom in 80 years. After WW2, all subsequent wars have been either proxy (korea, vietnam), or deterrent to relatively minor threats (gulf war, Iraq, Afghanistan). No veteran alive today ha done anything to keep us safe personally.