Me: "Yeah, the minivan over there belongs to a family that I guess was here to see their kid graduate from basic or AIT or whatever. He was in his class A's... I didn't realize that the wars had gone on so long that we were down to the Volkssturm. He looked 14!"
SB: "He was probably 19..."
Me: "He looked like he was barely old enough to be out of Webelos and he was a PFC!"
You know you're getting old when...
26 comments:
Back when I was in Basic...
You should try being an Army retiree and a Department of the Army civilian employee! Want to feel old? Just wait until you run into a General...WHO IS YOUNGER THAN YOU!!!!!
Did you tell him to get off your lawn?
If he was a PFC, he probably had a couple years college under his belt.
Mossyrock, I'm not quite to the point of being older than Generals yet, but one of my Pv2's from when I was a platoon sergeant is now a CW4.
I'm sure getting there....
Okay, all retired NCOs over here... COIN CHECK!
I knew when a girl enrolled in a firearm safety class I was running whose grandmother is younger than me.
Coin check, still has Julius's profile on mine, if you haven't got Alexander's I win.
They are all so young, and when I think that my son is now an old chief in the Navy - and Nam was that war before the big one...
I look back at pics of me and my buddies in the asshole of the world (Somalia) and it's like looking at my son's middle school yearbook.
When I was in, my mother used to tell me that she remembered once thinking the military sentinels at the gate were cute and that she would like to date them.
She said that the day she realized that she was old was the day when she thought they looked cold, and wanted to cook them a meal, because if they didn't eat, they would catch a cold.
She said going from being attracted to them to wanting to mother them is what made he feel old.
Actual conversation, between myself and another Major, downrange in Afstan last year:
Me: "You know you're getting older when you catch yourself referring to Captains as 'kids.'"
OM: "Remember when we were LTs, how old Majors were?"
Me: "Shit."
Noah wasn't handing out coins when I served on the Ark!
Actually, due to the advances in Medicine, Sewage Treatment and Nutrition ( ALL brought about by Western Civilization, thank you very much!), we have achieved a state where 5 Generations are alive at the same time in some parts of the world. Such is the case in my Family.
So don't feel TOO old until some snot nosed PFC asks if you served with his Great-Grand Father, and you have to say yes.
I saw Sgt. Gaston the other day. We were in the Gulf together (Gulf War 1, the Mini-Series, remember that one?). He's retired Sergent Major Gaston now.
Jesus.
...when the women you're taking classes with are almost the same age as your own kids.
...when you have at least 10 years on the professor/instructor.
...when you just sigh at the awful historical mistakes, knowing that you're there for the diploma, not to change the world.
Ah, back to school.
Don't feel bad, I've done something I'd never thought I'd done. I asked a cop if he were old enough to shave.
Don't feel bad, I've done something I'd never thought I'd done. I asked a cop if he were old enough to shave.
John B: I asked a Major that a few weeks ago.
Hell i only retired 11 yrs ago and i still look at them as kids. this retired nco looked a a baby face Marine last week and asked him if he could shave Damn if he wasn't a sargent! God how time flys!!!And everyone forgets Beruit. Granada, Panama,then the first Desert Storm!
Em1sw retired
Huh. Knew I shoulda kept more of my Basic Issue: "Roman helmet auctions for $3.6 million."
I knew I was getting old when I saw two Captains standing together at the airport and my first thought was "What are the JROTC kids doing out here?"
My wife found my IET photo in a box of stuff. It's pathetic, I look about 10 years old in it.
It was a surprise when I saw they were letting children be Mormon missionaries.
It was even more surprising when I saw they were letting children be police.
But it was a real shock when I saw they were letting children be airline pilots. And I don't mean one of those rinky-dink regional airlines, either. This was on United.
Coin check: Mine has YF-16 on it.
Of course, I cheated. My grandfather left it to me.
When I stand in the hall at Ms Tacticute's school to pick her up, though, I'm in the company of three Army majors, and I just think that if I had stayed active for a couple more years, I'd have that rank as well.
I have the best of both these worlds, I can't believe how young looking some of the new guys on my boat are, but one of my fellow Chief's graduated high school the year before I was born. I'm the old guy and the young kid at the same time.
Oh, and my favorite coin is the Australia-shaped consulate coin that an LCDR gave me as I rendered him his last salute. He was on his way out of PSD with his retirement papers and I was on my way in with my re-enlistment papers. If I had done things differently it would have been my last salute too!
"Me: He looked like he was barely old enough to be out of Webelos and he was a PFC!'"
I want to be there when he calls you "Ma'am".
Coin: USAREUR CG
As a 31 year old E5 (joined at 25), my last butter bar seemed like a kid. Don't even get me started on how I felt around a just-turned 18 PVT.
I mind the time, just before Christmas last year, when I saw a Marine walk into the local Publix. He was wearing khaki on top, blue on the bottom, with white cover.
Doubtless it had something to do with Toys for Tots.
What impressed me was, that he was so young, and so skinny, but had three stripes, a diamond, and two rockers, and what Temple Grandin calls the "Long Stare", only found in wolves and huskies among the canids, and in humans who have seen the elephant.
Man, he was 1/3 my age, but I felt very junior to him.
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