As an important way to promote the optimal allocation of resources and regional economic development, government subsidies play an assignable role in the production and operation of enterprises. Therefore, the research on factors influencing government subsidies has drawn wide attention. Existing researches suggest that political connections can help enterprises to obtain government subsidies. Based on this view, we take into account that China has a large number of veterans entering various enterprises each year, and military experience can be regarded as one of the manifestations of political connections. Therefore, this paper chooses military experience of managers as an entry point to study how military experience influences the acquisition of government subsidies. At the same time, based on the upper echelons theory, it chooses the dual perspectives of corporate philanthropy and redundant employees to discuss the different influences of managers’ military experience, and further explores whether corporate philanthropy and redundant employees play intermediary roles between military experience of managers and government subsidies, that is to say, the aim is to explore the way that managers with military experience strive for government subsidies. 　　This paper takes A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2015 in China as the research object, and examines the research questions through the empirical analysis. The conclusion shows that overall, there is a significant positive correlation between military experience of managers and government subsidies; corporate philanthropy plays a significant intermediary role in the relationship between military experience and government subsidies, while there is a significant negative correlation between redundant employees and military experience of managers; the redundant employees do not play an intermediary role between military experience of managers and government subsidies. In the further analysis and discussion, it explores the relationship between military experience and perk consumption. The results show that military experience is conducive to the reduction in the on-the-job consumption of management and confirm that managers with military experience are more honest and trustworthy. The conclusions can be understood as follows: military experience of managers helps enterprises to obtain government subsidies, and compared with the way of redundant employees that may damage the performance of enterprises, managers with military experience prefer the way of corporate philanthropy to shoulder social responsibilities and establish a good relationship between governments and enterprises, thus gaining more government support. In addition, military experience has a positive impact on managers, so that they can significantly reduce the pursuit of private benefits in business operations. The expected contribution of this paper mainly consists of two aspects: in theory, it expands the relevant research about the antecedents of government subsidies and political connections from the perspective of military experience; in practice, it reveals how military experience affects the acquisition of government subsidies and its impact on corporate philanthropy and redundant employees. In the context of a large number of veterans entering China every year, this paper has some reference to resettlement issues.