Buttigieg served in the
Afghanistan Threat Finance Cell (ATFC) in Kabul. The ATFC “identifies and disrupts Taliban, Al-Qaida and other insurgent financial support networks in Afghanistan”, so it's not exactly the same experience that people like Crenshaw had overseas. To be fair, he's never directly said that he was involved in any combat (or at least I don't believe that he ever has), but anyone would be mistaken if they assumed that he was.
He's never received a Navy combat ribbon, and given that his job was chasing around terrorist financials, I'm willing to assume he didn't spend any time in the trenches. As long as he doesn't start to try and claim that he went under Bosnian Sniper Fire or something I'm not going to give him any crap for it. Service is service after all, not everyone over there's going to be cracking skulls.