Sigh…

Cool kids these days… It’s not all tac clothes, beards, and tats that set you apart.

You AREN’T the be all to end all.

It’s that old man in the guayabera shirt and walker with the Korea hat that you damn near knocked over then laughed about as you left the grocery store with your beer. That bulge on his hip wasn’t a cell phone, that was in his shirt pocket. And the back of his hat said Marines.

He saw more death and did more in Korea than you’ve done in however many deployments you’ve made downrange. He did it on his own two feet, mile after mile, in the dead of winter. Not in an up armored Hummer or MRAP. I could go on, but you disgusted me with your hot shit attitudes yesterday.

You really need to learn a little humility. Spit…

Kicking the soap box back in the corner.

Comments

Sigh… — 15 Comments

  1. The guys who had to take Fallujah again and again have seen some shit. I’m absolutely certain that there’s a Marine out there somewhere who’s taken Fallujah at least two times, and probably three.

    But it’s not like fighting the PLA, outnumbered, facing tanks, artillery, and wave after wave of trained infantry.

  2. … and destroying 4-5 fronts (armies) while advancing to the coast. Their inheritors did the same in Fallujah. Those Fallujah Marines are often very low key. Met two of them.

    There’s a former Marine in the waiting room when I go to PT. His hair is quite gray, but his 7 point cap always looks freshly blocked; he still has the 1000 yard gaze. I’ll have to politely ask where he deployed.

    Kids like OldNFO described don’t get it. That older gentleman was probqbly doing Marine Math and wondering if they were worth it: 1 bayonet + 2 grenades = 3 day pass.

  3. Likely the punks were wannabes. Most of the younger folks I’ve seen who’ve deployed are somewhat more respectful to those who came before.

  4. McC/PK- I knew those guys when I worked for the Navy, they would NEVER have done that crap…

    Jim- Maybe…

    Gerry- Thanks!

    • I didn’t intend to imply that they would. There’s a reason I don’t write professionally, other than Intel reports. “Other people cannot hear the thoughts in your head.”

  5. Hey Old NFO;

    What you ran into was what I call “Wannabe’s” they either were or are in the service but never deployed or they never served but have all the cool tacticool stuff and the spartans or hoplite imagery. I recall seeing a pic on one of the veteran groups I follow on the book of face and and they show a pic of an old guy with a walker or a cane and it superimposes a pic of a young guy humping an M60 through the bush and it says “That old guy with the walker was and still is the baddest sunofabitch you will ever meet.” most of us that have deployed and have seen the elephant to use the old school phrase are very humble and stay to the background, don’t like to stir up a fuss because after seeing what we have seen, getting spooled up over crap just ain’t there.

  6. Bob, I wod only call my FIL sir, and that’s before his kids made a shadowbox for his ribbons. It was the parachute wings with battle stars from Korea that confirmed I did the right thing. Another background man, and you just knew not to get him angry.

  7. Bob- Yep!

    PK- Nope, you REALLY don’t want to piss those ‘old men’ off… They just don’t give a shit.

  8. NFO, I was at a party in Dallas a few years with some army guys. One of them, I think he’d been to Iraq, had a green para cord bracelet on his wrist.

    “I say, old chap,” I remarked, pointing at the offensive article, “I do like your tacticool jewelry.”

    He looked at me, honest face, said “sorry” and we enjoyed a few beers.

    All’s well that ends well.

    • You know, those started out as mementos. When the Army banned the name bracelets for the fallen, troops started tying 550 cord bracelets, with one knot for each fallen comrade.

      It took off from there into “fashion”. This is why we can’t have nice things.

  9. Most likely those ypk’s(youngpunkkids) were absent from class on the day their teacher(retired military) went through the process of explaining how old age and treachery will always overcome youthful exuberance and inexperience, heh, heh, heh.

  10. Your post reminds me of a tale my Cousin Ellen told me of a period when she and her (military) husband were living in San Diego. A favorite pastime of local punks was attacking the elderly for their Social Security checks (which the punks could get cashed at a discount by sketchy check cashing joints). Except in the Filipino neighborhoods…because the little old Filipino men with the rolled up newspapers who stood in line at the post office to get their checks were mostly ex-‘US forces in the Philippines’ members (Wendel Fertig’s old resistance), and they had more than once beaten would-be muggers to death with those rolled up newspapers.

  11. When I see shit like that, the “punks” often “trip” over their own feet or “accidentally” get pushed into door frames or somesuch.

    Strangely, when you look ’em in the eye afterwards, they don’t have the stones to do anything about it.

    Often, I mildly suggest that they apologize to the older person, and generally, they do.

    Bad behavior that goes unpunished will be repeated.