Rob_Roy
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George,
I was in the US Army, later in the Marines. While in the Army one of my drill sergeants, a Vietnam Infantry vet, told us our bodies can do "five times" what we think they can do. I was 17 and didn't know, really, what that meant. I thought it was hyperbole. Later I went through Special Forces ("Green Berets") Selection & Assessment. I passed Selection but failed the qualification course that followed, but I was in that business long enough to learn that drill sergeant was right. In the Marine Corps Infantry later on I put that experience to good use on several occasions (but never as hard for as long).
I think, but I don't know because I'm not as old as you, that one cannot get to your age group without developing a certain amount of mental stamina from enduring the physical suffering of an aging body, not to mention the impact of the other trials of life. So I'm not surprised that you could roll over and over to get to the phone, once you figured out that's what you had to do. Infantrymen would say you are 'hard,' a high compliment. If I lived near you I'd give you a beer and additional respect.
We used to say: "Mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't (friggin') matter." And, "Get hard or die." Grunts and their rhetoric. But sometimes it isn't hyperbole. Anyway, have a beer on me.
For the anti-military crowd: There are multiple perspectives for everything. Here I choose one I thought was also truthful and positive. Others have given other perspectives that are truthful and positive. So there we have it. For you intellectual types we can be like Ken Wilber: include and transcend, yes?
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