Do not believe those commercials for the military you see at half time of the Buccaneers/Raiders game. The fountain pen you’re using to enlist doesn’t magically turn into a flaming saber and the clipboard doesn’t morph into a cuirass the minute you sign on the olive drab dotted line. You’ve got to go through basic training before you slay any dragons, dude or dudette. You have to sit on the bus and talk about shrimp first, Napoleon. It has always been thus.

Eisenhower had to get MacArthur’s coffee for a good long time before they let him up on the furniture. And no offense, but you’re no Eisenhower. So just try to hold the pin and throw the grenade, not the other way around, and do whatever the fellow with all the stripes and the stentorian voice tells you, and you’ll do fine.

[Thanks to Gerard at American Digest for sending that one along]