When demonstrators took to the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, on Sunday to protest the police killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, they were met by heavily armed police, brandishing weapons donated by the military and taking up positions as if they were snipers in combat.

But don't expect U.S. military veterans to condone what has been going on in Ferguson— in fact, some of the most vocal critics of the police tactics have been former soldiers.

In general, criticisms by veterans fell into two categories: problems with how individual officers in Ferguson carried themselves, and problems with the scale of the crowd control operation.

Individual officers, they said, appeared far too aggressive.

"You just see guys running around pointing their weapons at people who are obviously not a threat," Josh Weinberg, a U.S. army veteran who spent time in Afghanistan, told Mashable.

He focused on a few images that have showed an officer sitting on top of an armored vehicle, peering through the scope of a long-range weapon.

Ferguson and St. Louis County police received military equipment from Pentagon http://t.co/tRnzGx7duF pic.twitter.com/oaKcAGnbt2 — Anthony De Rosa (@AntDeRosa) August 14, 2014

“If that guy really thought he was in danger…then he wouldn’t be sitting up there totally uncovered," Weinberg, who now works at the Truman Project, a national security think tank, said. "Again, where is the threat?"

Not only did veterans think officers were being overly aggressive, but they said the police didn't seem to understand how their show of force could exacerbate tensions.

In the USAF, we did crowd control and riot training every year. Lesson 1: Your mere presence has the potential to escalate the situation. — James Skylar Gerrond (@JimmySky) August 13, 2014

“We look at it from the perspective of how effective you’re going to be versus how much force protection you’re going to have," Joshua Prentice, a U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan, told Mashable.

The more weaponry and armor a soldier has, the more protected they seemingly are. But the more weaponry and armor they strap on, the more likely citizens are to feel threatened.

The gentleman on the left has more personal body armor and weaponry than I did while invading Iraq. pic.twitter.com/5u6TxyIbkk — Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) August 14, 2014

"When you show up with sniper rifles, M-4 rifles with scopes on them and armored vehicles, all you’re trying to do is assert your control," Prentice said.

The second problem that veterans pointed to was the size of the police operation in Ferguson.

The St. Louis County Police Department has been in charge in Ferguson since the shooting, helping local officers quell crowds of protesters. But Missouri Governor Jay Nixon ordered them out of the city on Thursday, handing authority to the state's highway patrol after days of criticism of what seemed like the use of excessive force.

Prentice said that overreaction by police—in terms of both weaponry and the sheer number of officers—make it hard for residents to see them as anything but an "occupying force," even if he thinks that term has been somewhat overplayed.

Police wearing riot gear try to disperse a crowd on Aug. 11 in Ferguson, Missouri. Image: Jeff Roberson/Associated Press

Police forces across the U.S. have been outfitted with leftover military hardware and weaponry as America's operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down over the past several years.

Weinberg doesn't object to police getting military equipment but he said that a certain level of training needs to come with the weaponry.

“What you really need to talk about is, 'are those guys ready to use it?'" Weinberg said. “They could've kept all that shit in the garage for this one.”