Old soldiers to the front: The resentful anger of aging males must be put to good use

Reposted from eds. for your reading pleasure?

Old soldiers to the front: The resentful anger of aging males must be put to good use

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6726

Old soldiers to the front: The resentful anger of aging males must be put to good use
by Jaime O'Neill | Apr 12 2007

— this essay originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle

In America's war on terror, the time-honored tradition requiring young people to do the fighting and dying needs to be seriously re-evaluated.

Because most of the fighting now being done requires far less marching than was once needed, it is only reasonable to propose that perhaps we have arrived at a time in the history of human struggle when the old people can do the fighting.

After all, how much youthful vigor does it require to fire lightweight weapons from the back of an armored-personnel carrier? How much strength does it take to press the trigger on a grenade launcher, or to redirect the turret on a tank? When soldiers are being driven to the various scenes of conflict, why is it necessary for soldiers to be young?

And, because youth is no longer the requisite quality for struggling, and because the U.S. military is having difficulty finding enough young people willing to fight and die in this struggle, it would, therefore, be wise to consider that vast pool of potential warriors at the other end of the age spectrum.

Tapping that pool of warriors should be easy. Aging males are easily the most gung-ho of all warriors.

From Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove right on down to the guys who write letters to the editors of the nation's newspapers, the fiercest warriors are men over 50, men with expanding waistlines and receding hairlines who would tear the enemy a new one if only they could get up off the sofa in less than three tries.

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How about hunting down those scumhead bastards who never finished their commitment to TANG?

:)

And my "resentful anger" has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Iraqis. How about sending a few foul-mouthed, malicious, reichbot women like Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin??

:grr: :puke:

Perhaps Jaime O'Neill would like to meet some of the "aging males" at my local VFW?? There are more than a few of us who'd like to share the burden of the failures of our nation while that "youthful vigor" is spent dragging the fucking fascists out of the White House instead of pulling their puds at the sound of their iPods!

The service people in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't the people who've driven this country into a ditch. Now the question is: Who the fuck is going to get it out of that ditch?

people who haven't served a day in their lives. He should have added dimson.
All in good fun, T N!
And good luck getting those bimbos over there.

I can see Bush scrambling for a place to hide when gunfire breaks out!

"Now, where's that damned hole Saddam was hiding in? Ahh! Here it is! Hey, Dick, what are you doin here?"

send the old men with children to war.

Leave the young men for the future.

:eyes:

its the armchair warriors that are craving war. Why not let them enjoy it for themselves instead of vicariously.

However, if you have post-menopausal women who are craving war, yes sir, put them in uniform and send them there

are fighting Korea and/or Vietnam AGAIN. In their deluded minds, they believe that they could bomb those little yellow people back to the stone age. Idiots! :eyes:

Allowing older people to enlist voluntarily seems perfectly reasonable to me,
provided they are in good enough physical condition to serve and otherwise meet
the requirements.

If an older person wants to join the military and is fit enough to serve, then
not to allow them to do so is age discrimination.

A draft (of older people or anyone else) is a completely different matter,
and I would never support that. The article did not actually advocate a
draft either.

:blush:

They are the ones so darn afraid that the amorphous enemy is going to follow us "over here" if we don't WIN (:wtf:) "over there."

Yes, come on down to your local recruiters right wing republicans. If you are not using a walker OR a power chair, The Infantry is your new MOS! ;)