About That Age Thing….
I got this essay in the mail from someone a while back. I don’t know who the author is, but I think it’s very much to the point.
I am over 60 and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You can’t be older than 42 to join the military. They’ve got the whole thing ass-backwards.
Instead of sending 18-year olds off to fight, they ought to take us old guys.. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35.
For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a month, leaving us more than 280,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. ‘My back hurts! I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry.’ We are bad-tempered and impatient, and maybe letting us kill some asshole that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while..
An 18-year-old doesn’t even like to get up before 10 am. Old guys always get up early to pee, so what the hell. Besides, like I said, I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical SOB. If captured we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser.
Boot camp would be easier for old guys.. We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.
They could lighten up on the obstacle course however… I’ve been in combat and never saw a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.
Actually, the running part is kind of a waste of energy, too…. I’ve never seen anyone outrun a bullet.
An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn’t figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.
These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm’s way.
Let us old guys track down those terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple million pissed off old farts with bad attitudes and automatic weapons, who know that their best years are already behind them.
HEY!! How about recruiting Women over 50…in menopause!!! You think MEN have attitudes??
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh my!!! If nothing else, put them on border patrol. They’ll have it secured the first night!
Share this with all of your senior friends. Put it in big type so they can read it.
— Author Unknown
Category: Geezer Alert!
LOL…I’ve read that before, and being that I am over 60 it is so true
I am at an awkward age; I’m too old for the military and too young for the home.
Some of the same things I found funny in my 20’s & 30’s would still be as funny. For example, the February in Korea when I was issued just a sleeping bag liner and was told it would suffice. Then there was the time at 4 degrees north latitude at sea level when I was issued an arctic weight sleeping bag and was told it would suffice.
Regardless of age; there’s intelligence and there’s military intelligence.
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE – The ULTIMATE contradiction of terms!
“Dammit. Where did I put that rifle?”
“Hey, I need eight. I don’t get eight hours sleep, I’m no good.”
“Dahell sense does that make? You want us to run 5 miles when there’s a motor pool full of vehicles?”
“Whose got some extra denture glue and a Depends?”
Tell you what, Ex-. When our enemies agree to use only 50-75 year olds in their armies, we should give it some consideration. Until then, we abide by the adage that old men make wars and young men them.
My cat gets me up at 3AM, not because she needs to have the litterbox cleaned, but because her empty pit stomach is rumbling and she wants FOOODDAMMITMA!
I’m up
They see me
I’m down
I’m down
I’m down
Corpsman up! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!
Fill in the missing word yourselves, please. Thanks.
I am sure that even at my age I would be a good drone operator. I already have years of experience sitting in one spot for hours staring at a video screen playing flight simulator and other video games.
A few years ago there was a job fair at my school. The Marines had a booth, and I picked up some of their literature. As a joke I filled out and sent in a form requesting information about their Platoon Leader Class. My correct age, well over the upper limit, was listed.
Much to my surprise, in about two weeks I received a very nice letter (probably a form letter, but still…) from a LTC at Quantico politely explaining that they did not need my services at this time. I hope the folks at Quantico were as amused as I was/am.
I tried to sign up after 9-11 and was told that I was also too old…
I told them I was a nurse and that I was also 11B when I was in the big war.
They politely told me that since I was a nurse, I had a license and that if they really needed me they would find me…
I would have gone in a heartbeat…
Technology will render biological human soldiering obsolete in 20 or 30 years.
Artificial intelligence and nanotechnology will make possible warfare in the nano scale, requiring autonomous machines.
Yef: I think it will be sooner than 20 years. I believe we will see some form of autonomous machine in battle within 5 years. I don’t believe there are many jobs ‘robots’ can not perform well. As some have suggested, there may come a time when those in their working years simply don’t have work to perform.
And in 20 years and about 5 months, those autonomous machines will realize it’ll just be easier for them if they make all humans extinct…..
Don’t mess with us septuagenarians. We are too old to fight so we will just kill you, no fourplay.
Broke dick platoon just became literal!
It’s not the shooting that’s the problem for us oldsters. It’s all that shit that comes before and after that is.
The problem is, the military bureaucracies have enjoyed way too much throwing out people in their 30s and 40s, ESPECIALLY if they can do it before you have enough time for an active retirement.
They don’t like older people at all because we cost more and call bullshit more. We are smarter and ask “why?” too often. Bureaucrats really don’t like that. They want dumb kids who will just go when they’re told to go. The “invincible” age group that won’t feel pain until they’re in their 30s.
And of course now they are begging for those same types to come back if they ETS’d in the last 2 years because they are so hurting for us. Because it is easier and quicker to find excuses to kick someone out who’s older and kids are much cheaper.
Unless of course it’s the national guard. If you can walk up and down those 3 steps in front of the HQ on your own, you can still stay in….
If we could still challenge fellow service members to duels, I’m thinking that Army Human Resources Command would be empty due to all the duels they’d be getting shot in.
Hey now. The older I get, the better I was!
*grin*
You, too?
“nor did I ever do any pushups after completing basic training.”
I tried a few when I turned 40.
Not since.
WOW, I’m 71 years young, still going to the range at least once a week plus a little workout in the club house gym.
Additionally, most of us over 50 have been divorced so we are still highly pissed off about the settlement. We can also deploy for much longer periods of time, many years to be exact simply because no one really misses us anymore. Just don’t billet us with anyone in their 20’s because if we share what we know and have seen in life with the young ones, they’ll cease to have friends and be too afraid to move on with life !
For the real senior “special operators” I would simply advise adding tofu to meals and then eliminating Metamucil and you’ll get an angry cranky animal-warrior with no fear of any enemy, foreign OR domestic
CAPT Bones USN (ret)