I know the feeling. What really hurts is that I'm looking at 50, in the best shape of my life, and am regarding the current recruits with horror...Jaysus, they're just kids. Were we ever that young?
There are a couple of things we can do: (1) keep the shooting eye sharp (and what the heck, given the nature of this little brouhaha there's even an outside chance we might be able to use it right here) - and (2) for me the big one, it's this: the treatment accorded the Vietnam vets will never, never happen again as long as I draw breath. First sumbitch spits on a vet will have my thumbprints on his trachea, no joke.
Happy birthday in advance from an ex-squid. Nice to see the Navy's little brothers dressed up so fine, so very fine...but you can't take 'em out...
DAMN! I have no idea what I'd do,but I suspect it wouldn't be pretty. I got dizzy and started seeing dots in front of my eyes just reading your comments and thinking about it. I'm not a nice man when things like that happen.