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If you retire in your 40s you will be spending your retirement with people the ages of your parents and older. If you intend to be active during the daytime when you would normally be at work, just consider that what you like to do and what they like to do, what you like to talk about and what they like to talk about, might not be the same. For example: They may like different movies, books, TV shows and music or they may be unwilling to drive any distance in a car or at night...but they'll travel to Europe or Asia if they traveled pre-retirement.
I retired at age 55 and my biggest shock were the number of seniors still computer illiterate, especially the ones who have been retired 10 years or more. They don't know how to get instant information. They have to have a hardcopy of everything or if you send them something electronically, they print it out. They check their e-mail once a week and sometimes less than that or not at all so they often miss announcements/cancellations/changes. They still write letters. They still want photo prints or send you prints even if they have a computer. If they do check e-mail, they'll send you an email telling you to call them instead of explaining what they want in the message. And, I'm speaking of intelligent people. They must have just missed out on the computer revolution at work, thought they never would have to get on that train if they retired, and now they are out there, adrift (in my opinion). (P.S. if you are reading this, it's not you I'm talking about.)
If you do activities, of course you will be with other people, regardless of age, who also do those activities, so that's not an issue. But, it will be harder to find friends to talk to and who share your interests beyond those joint activities because of the generation divide between a 45 year old retiree and a 65 - 85 year old retiree.
Just something to think about.
If you retire in your 40's that means freedom to do whatever you want. That means work can be life and something that you enjoy the most.
I can still hang out with the 20's, 30's and 40's. I will just have more time then them!
On a side note: I served 14 years on subs during the cold war, and then I 'skated' off to less stressful Law Enforcement duties stateside and overseas.
In my mind, everyone who dies while performing his duties in the US military deserves the same level of respect. Regardless of whether they died fighting a fire on a sub while submerged under ice; or from electrocution while adjusting a nuclear power plant's electric panels; or from a flooded compartment; or standing gate-guard duties and taking rounds from a drive-by gang-banger; or from rounds fired by Christian-Forces as they come out of church and they see that MPs are assisting muslim farmers in the street.
Each of these examples were US servicemembers who died while performing their duties with me.
There is no greater, or lesser 'glory' from dying in a trench while being shot at by enemy machine guns.
I hear this nonsense at my VFW post all the time. It is nonsense.
WWI vets hold no greater honour than do WWII vets. WWII vets are not more glorious than Korean vets. Korean vets are not 'real vets' as compared to VN vets. VN vets are not any more honourable than Kosovo vets.
Every man who serves his country is honourable.
Every death of a US servicemember is honourable and should not be made less of because "He was not serving in the right battlefield".
Which war a man dies in is not important, to suggest that one war is a more honourable than another is disrespectful.
Men working with me have died from enemy fire, as well as from smoke inhalation, and electrocution, and drowning, and bullets from drive-bys. To suggest that any of those men's lives were in some manner less, because of the location or manner of their deaths is an insult.
we may very well have been, they just werent declared wars.... its pretty brain racking to find times we werent fiighting some where in any given year.
i imagine if i went year by year there may be a few but id really have to search for them.
what do you expect from a country who's own national anthem has missles and bombs in it ha ha ha
If you retire in your 40's that means freedom to do whatever you want. That means work can be life and something that you enjoy the most.
I can still hang out with the 20's, 30's and 40's. I will just have more time then them!
It's not from the perspective of an older person but with a younger person trying to find friends with similar interests in a cluster of older people their parents' age. I retired at 55 and saw the difference right away. There are some very intelligent active seniors where I live, 65 - 85. As long as we're doing the thing that brought us together, it's fine, but in casual conversation we're on different planets. I just couldn't imagine what it would be like for a 45 year old.
There is no --"wrong service" ( I was drafted in the Navy and my son served 20 years and retired from the Navy)
However ,despite his many deployments, I have never heard hin refer to all of them as --"combat tours"
The language of my awards, evals, and dd-214 is 17 'patrols' and one 'deployment'. In each case with combat/hazardous duty-pay and tax-free status.
I sometimes refer to them as 18 tours, but in fact during my career I only did 17 'patrols' [like I said I did skate out of doing more] and 1 'deployment'.
I had assumed that the distinction between 'patrols' and 'deployments' is a rather minutiae detail when among civilians; and like many others I had fallen into the habit of calling them all 'tours'.
The Navy does not commonly use the term 'tour'.
My patrols were all between 95 and 100 days in duration, submerged, doing things. During my 14 years of sea-duty, I have been in 3 liberty ports total. Otherwise my sea-time has been busy doing things.
My deployment was in the Kosovo theater defending muslims against Christian 'harassment' and genocide.
Quote:
... ( I was unaware we have been at constant war for the last 30 years )
I find this difficult to imagine.
The American media seems to have kept the public well informed of all of our activities. We have had a long series of over-lapping hot spots.
What I find interesting is that even though we have all of these hot-spots going on, our public does not care.
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