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Stupid decision. Even for high-rank officers. People older than 60 are completely useless in the army.
I don't know about that.
You probably don't want a near-retirement-age person hauling a rifle on the front lines, but something like 90% of a modern military doesn't directly engage in combat. If you can drive a truck to keep the logistics chain moving or something...shrug
Most 60-year-olds cannot do that. Most of them are chronically ill. They need warmth and pills.
lol 60 year olds in Finland will friggin pass you twice on the sports track before you had even time to tell them they're chronically ill.
There are countries where this is true. But AFAIK, not in (most?) European countries.
*wheezes in American
One of the national pastimes in Finland is running between a sauna and jumping in snow/an ice lake and back, those 60+ year old are fine especially when it comes to cold.
To form this opinion, I assume that you have worked closely with quite a few high-ranking military officers over the age of 60. Were they really that bad?
I have encountered Lembot_00?? accounts before, and they were all borderline trolls. This one is only 15 days old rn and exhibits the same tendencies. Frankly, I don't believe them when they say they have actually worked in the army.
You assume correctly. In my country major is considered a... no idea how it is called in English. We called it "higher rank officers". And yes, I worked to some extent with these people during the actual war when they had to do more than just breathe and wear a hat.
And Finland really needs an army, not a kindergarten of old farts. You can look at the map to see why.
I'm still not quite understanding what their age has to do with whatever the problem is. The routine makes them fat and lazy after enough years of their job being to "breathe and wear a hat"? Maybe that wouldn't apply to reservists? Or maybe they don't run things that way in Finland?
(shrug) Sorry, I can't explain this. Some things are so obvious that they are very hard to formally explain.
In my experience, if you can't explain a thing, it's usually because you don't understand it; that ability to explain is practically what it is to understand a thing (with notable exceptions for eg. language difficulties, or for simple hand-eye tasks, which this shrugging abdication(abnegation?) of explanation does not even pretend to try to meet).
Hi again lembot, could you do us a collective favor and just increment the count again with your next alt to save the modmail time?
Or better yet, cite some sources in your comments rather than airing mechanical exhaust in the chatroom?
What sources do you need to understand that "60 is old"?
You go to war with the army that you have, not the army that you want.
It is more complicated than that. At some situations a few old/fat/stupid/etc soldiers could decrease the overall effectiveness of the unit. In too many cases, no soldier at all is better than a very bad soldier.
Sure, I don't disagree that a very bad soldier can make things worse than by not being there, and the factors you mentioned have a negative correlation with performance, but I don't think you can automatically determine people will be that level of bad of soldiers based solely on those factors, particularly age.
Especially since people still work at that age, even in physically laborious jobs.
Armies also tend to have more support troops than combat arms anyway.
Winston Churchill was 64 when WWII started