along these lines
Posted on 12/05/2023 7:47:01 PM PST by Redcitizen
SEOUL, South Korea — Dressed in borrowed camouflage fatigues, they fumbled with their ammunition belts and K2 assault rifles. Some had white hair and a slow, shuffling gait; their average age was 63, the oldest 75.
It was the most unconventional batch of trainees that the 52nd Infantry Division's Seocho Reserve Forces Training Center had ever seen, and Lt. Col. Hwang Hyeon-seok received them with a strained smile, desperately hoping that none of them would get hurt.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
Drafting Guys over 60
New Direction for any war: Send Service Vets over 60!
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 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 day, leaving us more than 28,000 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 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 a.m. 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 son-of-a-bitch.
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 didn’t see 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 out run a bullet.
An 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave, to start up 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 o ff into harm’s way.
Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists. The last thing an enemy would want to see is a couple of million pissed off old farts with attitudes and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them.
along these lines
“An army marches on its stomach.”
The “old” soldiers would play a massive roll in logistics, shipping, guarding supply routes, treating wounded, and any number of needs during a war. South Korea is still technical at war with the commie marxist bastards of North Korea. They know the horrors and are keeping prepared unlike Biden’s military. (Can’t bring myself to say American military after what the marxist democrat scumbags have done to it.)
“We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at”
That is a HUGE “ain’t that the truth” comment. If I were as old as I am now at Cape May I would have just laughed at the DIs and DDIs.
“ but once situated, we’d remember what to do!“
From the movie top gun2 where the main character has to remember how to get an old F-14 going that he hasn’t flown in decades….
“It’s been a minute, huh, Mav” - Top Gun: Maverick
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vKjNtHbs9eI&pp=ygUbdG9wIGd1biBpdCdzIGJlZW4gYSBtaW51dGUg
Now that is living history.
Speaking of living history, our Navajo code talkers are leaving. ( people who pass in our culture are considered to have “left”).
We only have a handful remaining and when they are gone, wow. No more direct reference to that time.
Hah!! 😎👍
BKMK
I was thinking the same thing: What if the Norks pull a 10-7 on the South? They have a history of pulling stunts like this. North Korea once, as recently as 1980, had an entire village of kidnapped Japanese (taken from fishing villages) and their North Korean “spouses”. The idea was to train Norks to live as Japanese, to infiltrate their society. They would routinely send teams of terrorists and saboteurs into the South from submarines expecting them to die carrying out their missions.
Norkland is one messed up country.
“...my LBE in my closet ready to go.”
Weren’t you supposed to turn that in?
My biggest regret from out processing was having to turn in my pristine wool blanket and receiving a thin, worn out patched one in exchange. Like it’d been used to move furniture down hallways. It took 20 years but I finally got a new Army wool blanket. I looked at the ratty one’s NSN label and saw it was made by Woolrich. Trolled their website for two years looking for them. They weren’t listed or available. They finally put them on a limited time sale for $90. Got one. Exactly the same except for a commercial label instead of the NSN one. Nothing beats the warmth of a good wool blanket!
Well trained soldiers can be quite lethal in urban combat even if they’re older - as the Red Army discovered to their cost in the Battle of Berlin.
Sure, an older guy is not going to be able to hump 20 miles with a 60 pound pack on his back and then dig into hard ground like you would expect of a fit 20 year old. They will tire faster and will sustain injuries more frequently - and will take longer to recover from injuries. All true.
But they know how to shoot. They know how to take care of their weapons. They know how to lay down proper interlocking fire. Particularly if they’re hardened old combat veterans as many Germans who were first world war veterans were in 1945, they’re not going to be easily frightened, intimidated or dislodged from their defensive positions.....and they can take a high toll on attacking troops. Particularly in a defensive role, I would not discount well trained troops even if they are older.
Might have to watch that movie again...
South Korean women aren’t having babies. So they now need 75 year old soldiers.
At my first duty assignment, one of the older squad leaders in the platoon advised me to purchase an extra set of LBE at Clothing Sales (or one of the Army/Navy stores downtown) and use my personal LBE during field training exercises, and to store my issued LBE. That way, when reassigned or transferred and required to turn in my issued LBE, the issued LBE would be clean and in good condition.
I took that advice to heart and later counseled all of my junior soldiers to do the same thing.
When I was an M60 machinegunner, I was required to carry a .45 as a back-up defense weapon. I purchased a non-firing replica to carry in the field so that I didn't have to clean the .45 upon returning to garrison. When I became a squad leader, I gave the replica to my platoon's M60 gunner for him to use. For all I know, there's an M60 gunner somewhere on Fort Hood that's still using that replica ...
I can feel them - at 71, things that used to be light enough to juggle are now onerous and much more affected by gravity than they used to be....
Wisdom from one who is 81
Get some weights or go to the gym and work with weights.
Otherwise you will continue to lose strength
“””Speaking of living history, our Navajo code talkers are leaving.”””
Here is some information that illustrates a huge difference between the Army and the Marine Corps in managing public relations and publicity. The Army used code talkers in WWI and WWII and the Pacific and in Europe and North Africa.
U.S Army Choctaw Codetalkers.
“” The name code talkers is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater. Code talking, however, was pioneered by Choctaw Indians serving in the U.S. Army during World War I. These soldiers are referred to as Choctaw code talkers.
Other Native American code talkers were deployed by the United States Army during World War II, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Lakota Meskwaki, and Comanche soldiers. Soldiers of Basque ancestry were used for code talking by the U.S. Marines during World War II in areas where other Basque speakers were not expected to be operating.””
World War I
In France during World War I, the 142nd Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, had a company of Indians who spoke 26 languages and dialects. Two Indian officers were selected to supervise a communications system staffed by 18 Choctaw. The team transmitted messages relating to troop movements and their own tactical plans in their native tongue. Soldiers from other tribes, including the Cheyenne, Comanche, Cherokee, Osage and Yankton Sioux also were enlisted to communicate as code talkers. Previous to their arrival in France, the Germans had broken every American code used, resulting in the deaths of many Soldiers. However, the Germans never broke the Indians’ “code,” and these Soldiers became affectionately known as “code talkers.”
World War II
During World War II, the Army used Indians in its signal communications operations in both the European and Pacific theaters of operations. Student code talkers were instructed in basic military communications techniques. The code talkers then developed their own words for military terms that never existed in their own native tongue. For instance, the world for “colonel” was translated to “silver eagle,” “fighter plane” became “hummingbird,” “minesweeper” became “beaver,” “half-track” became “race track,” and “pyrotechnic” became “fancy fire.”
The Army and Marine Corps used a group of 24 Navajo code talkers in the Pacific Theater, who fought in the many bloody island campaigns. In North Africa, eight Soldiers from the Meskwaki tribe in Iowa served as code talkers in the 168th Infantry Regiment, 34th Division. In Europe, the 4th Signal Company, 4th Infantry Division, was assigned 17 Comanche code talkers. From the D-Day landings at Normandy in June 1944, to the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge, they kept the lines of communications secure.
Soldiers from other tribes, including the Kiowa, Winnebago, Chippewa, Creek, Seminole, Hopi, Lakota, Dakota, Menominee, Oneida, Pawnee, Sac, Fox and Choctaw served during the war. Some were killed and wounded and at least one was taken prisoner. As a testament to their professionalism, the enemy was never able to break the code talkers’ communications.
Many of the code talkers continued in their military careers, serving during the Korean and Vietnam wars.” At some point, I may look into their use in Korea and Vietnam. The Chicago Tribune has an article of their use in Vietnam.
“””Sure, an older guy is not going to be able to hump 20 miles with a 60 pound pack on his back and then dig into hard ground like you would expect of a fit 20 year old. They will tire faster and will sustain injuries more frequently - and will take longer to recover from injuries. All true.
But they know how to shoot. They know how to take care of their weapons. They know how to lay down proper interlocking fire. Particularly if they’re hardened old combat veterans as many Germans who were first world war veterans were in 1945, they’re not going to be easily frightened, intimidated or dislodged from their defensive positions.....and they can take a high toll on attacking troops. Particularly in a defensive role, I would not discount well trained troops even if they are older.””””
That was a very good description.
Them: “I Don’t Remember the Rifles Being So Heavy”
Me, after trying on my uniform the other day:
“I don’t remember my uniform being so tight, must of shrunk” haha
I remember some soldiers doing that. But they didn’t use their pay. They’d usually use an FTX to declare it lost. If we had an FTX near end of fiscal year the unit knew it could rely on Use or Lose funding to replace gear lost during FTXs and soldiers weren’t charged. I just used the barracks washing machine and the black paint to cover the bare metal. I took special care of my wear-ables, drive-ables and shoot-ables cuz it was my butt depending on them.
Regards.
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