The Smallest Minority

Yeah, but it's a HOLLYWOOD ending! He stopped before the job was done, and the perp got away!

I think the Merc got the oldster's branch of service wrong.

Here's the same story, from Channel 5 news in SF. Note the hat the guy's wearing - 101st Airborne - and the pin down toward the bill, which is the division patch of the 25th Infantry Division.

http://cbs5.com/local/Marine.attempted.robbery.2.686630.html

What's funny is that even though the Ch 5 story IDs him as a former paratrooper, the link says Marine. Someone must have corrected them.

I saw a link to a news program where he said that after he got the kid in the groin , he kicked him in the teeth, THEN picked up his bags and walked home, without looking back. Just gives you the warm fuzzies.

Never pick a fight with an old man . If he's too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

You inspired me to write this one up: two Royal Marines vs a group of alcohol-fuelled yobs.

http://quartzquill.blogspot.com/2008/03/royal-marines-1-yobs-0.html

I learned this one before I was 18 myself, more years ago than I care to think about. The way it was put to me was:
"Never get into a fight with an old man. He knows he no longer has the wind to play games with you. So he'll take every dirty trick he's learned in a long lifetime and show you wny they are effective... one at a time and then all together."

I consider learning such wisdom at a young age one of the main reasons why I've spent as little time in the hospital as I have.

An elderly friend of mine came back from a trip to Paris with a similar story. He was perusing a menu outside a restaurant, on an otherwise empty street, when a previously unseen youth grabbed his arm and demanded money. My friend related that after beating the youth into a bloody puddle, and leaving him there, he went back to his hotel. He says he got very disturbed, because he realized the training he had in his 20's was still active in his subconscious. As he put it, "I didn't think about it, I just did what I'd been trained to do all those years ago. And I thought that was all over."

If indeed the man is a Marine, the news needs to edit their headline, for there are no "former Marines."

Once a Marine, always a Marine.

Grandpa we love you!!

"Once a Marine, always a Marine."

And for the "exception for every rule" category, I give you John Murtha.

OMG, Ed, I just snorted myself stupid laughing at that. You got me! Can we have Murtha summarily declared NOT a Marine?

Rachel Lucas tells it well. She found it at Allahpundit, whose punchline is:

"There’s something about an 81-year-old veteran and the phrase “And then I kicked him in the teeth” that’s simply magical. "

Don't forget Old Women ought to be dangerous too - not like a Wiccy-Wiccan Wowzerlady Witch but: Grandma with a shotgun.

Anyone besides me seen Night of the Hunter? The heroine of that movie IS a single old lady with a shotgun. It was made in 1955.

I originally rented it because Robert Mitchum's performance is a classic, but the dangerous old woman presented utterly without irony or any framing as abnormal or immoral wound up being the highlight of the film for me.

This is what happens in the UK in contrast:

Youth crime in Britain

As the man who taught me swordfighting is fond of saying, "Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm."

Damn, Sam. Stole my line! Brovo to the Sarge!

More intense than "bravo". ahem.

Robert Mitchum is the man, but Lillian Gish isn't just the woman, she's the lady.