Better with Age-59 Yr Old OWNS Army Boot Camp (Marine Reacts)

imagine being 59 and being a brand new boot in the army let's go nobody ever goes through basic training and thinks to themself oh i want to repeat that he looks like he'd be the battalion commander or something or the sergeant major of the army god bless this guy 59 and just finished army boot camp i thought you could be 59 maybe a doctor or some specially skilled person now i do think if you can pass the physical and do the job i could care less how old you are i figured my marine corps boot camp that i went through in 1978 was sufficient i was unaware that i was going to have to go back to basic training picture yourself a 59 year old man being thrust into a situation by which you have to be with 17 to 19 year olds for three months words are pretty cheap you don't sit around and talk about what you can do you show people what you can do you just don't recover i'm not 59 and i don't recover like i did when i was 17 at paris island so i have a lot of respect for this man doing it at 59. i knew some older guys that went through marine corps boot camp because typically if you're in the marine corps you don't have to go to another boot camp some army guys and i want to say a navy guy they were going through and they were older they were like 25 and they were telling me was tough on them by no means 59. in 1978 i enlisted the united states marine corps for three years got out and got into law enforcement and then desert storm broke out and i went back into the military hoping to get into combat operations i've been deployed to afghanistan kuwait asia i was in the infantry i remember during desert storm they recalled some guys i remember sitting in the chow hall clear as day camp lejeune seeing these old guys come in like needed a haircut old ass woodland camis and thinking who what the hell these old corporals doing here don't remember everything or why i just remember looking at them and hearing that was the point and old as in they made may have been in like their 30s right and i joined the national guard up to about 2009 and then i exited service today i wanted to go back for four different reasons one was because my son is in the army reserve near my home the ability to serve my son which very few people get an opportunity to do and that was a biggie then the next one was i have about two more years to do to get my retirement from the united states army number three i felt like i wanted to serve my nation i had much more to give and number four and most importantly i felt like i was physically fit enough good enough health to do anything that anybody else could do out there and serve my nation in a productive way and that's the key point right he can do the job just like females in combat roles transsexuals i don't want to go down that path but if someone can do the work and they don't bring a bunch of extra static to the troops god bless them so that was the decision-making process for me so here i am and i spoke to my wife about it i i busted out laughing it was funny both of the kids left yeah but not in a mean type of way but you know what i think you don't have to give up when you get older you keep going so i figured why not i think i'm extremely driven i'm not going to take no for an answer and i'm not going to quit i'm going to exhaust every possible avenue to achieve the desired end goal there's that's a great takeaway he's not trying everything to achieve his goal which is to go to army boot camp and become enlisted active duty at 59. if everyone thought okay i want to end up here let me reverse engineer to get there and spend some time with it i think we all be better off there is a conflict getting back in i had to submit packages and hundreds of pieces of paper after 14 months of going through this process wow they said okay you can come to the recruitment station we'll put you back through the physical one final time that was physical number four by the way during the process of signing a contract and going through the paperwork they told me oh and by the way there's been a regulation change you have to go back to basic training i stopped and looked at him and said what are you talking about that's ridiculous i didn't have to go back to basic training the last time why would i have to go back to basic training now they said well the regulations changed so i guess i guess that's it huh you're not gonna now question for you guys if you had you're going back in and they said hey by the way buddy you gotta go back to boot camp basic training day one you may come out of boot camp and this guy looks like he's a staff sergeant but you got to go to boot camp i don't know that regulation makes any sense i'm not sure what the parameters are if you got a guy that's been in the guard he went to boot camp he's capable he's physically fit going to boot camp before benning again probably doesn't make the most sense do the contract and i thought to myself i'm 59 years old i just really do not want to do this but this is just another obstacle that's been laid before my feet to stop me from doing this and i'm just going to do it good work you get off the bus and there's drill sergeants waiting for you and then that's where the fun and games begins at that point [Applause] the drill sergeants when they saw me were stunned it became comical to me because i knew when a new drill sergeant would see me they would instantly stop there was like a moment of hesitation and they would kind of they thought there was a mole in their midst right like they sent some guy in it was a sergeant major to see what they were doing that's had to be shocking he could have been their father no doubt look at me and then at some point walk up to me and ask me how old are you i've never seen anything like this this is bizarre going through the training with the younger people there was a burden on me as well to perform the best i could to be an example to everyone there people were really curious about why i was there and would tell me openly that it was really motivational and inspiring to have me there with them if this 59 year old old guy can do this i can certainly do this i'm not getting any breaks it would be an adjustment when i saw this video come up i thought how would it be if i went 30 years later to boot camp things have changed culture has changed training with women the language has changed i'm sure the physical side would be the same i would pull my stress card if i was in the army right and i'd say i don't want the shark attack but i i think you know the physical side would be about the same i think the culture shock would be unbelievable the same thing day in day out when they got punished i was right there doing push-ups with them through the training i won the confidence in the drill service because i was able to to do all the physical exercises to do all the written tests to do all the practical application tests without any problem whatsoever i graduated the top 10 percent of my class you know what those drills sergeants were thinking they were going okay who does this guy know to pull the strings to get into this at 59. that's what i'd be thinking like we cannot do any things this guy may have a general that's his brother that got him in somehow that would be nerve-wracking we're all but i was pretty glad to get out of there at that point the single hardest thing to overcome in that environment is the age deviation and the way people think the norms the culture what is acceptable what is not acceptable i was facing the adaptation all right can you imagine this you're like hey gramps let's go out in town let me see if i can get a senior discount with you like the military discount plus the senior on top to that other than that the united states army did an excellent job of organizing the training administrating the training the equipment everything else leading up to that was stellar was much better than when i went through boot camp in 1978 it was excellent it felt fantastic to wear the uniform again and represent my nation and be part of the team it's great to be back in the organization with my brothers and sisters in uniform serving our nation and just being into something bigger now for you guys that have been in if you had to go back 20 years later what would be your biggest hurdle if you guys that are young what would you think of a 59 year old in your platoon you

Channel: Jamesons Travels

Views: 766,914

Rating: 4.9497967 out of 5

Keywords: Jamesons Travels, marine reacts, veteran, marine corps, warrior culture, oldest army soldier, age for boot camp, oldest army recruit, oldest army ranger, oldest army veteran, oldest army regiment, basic training, boot camp, army boot camp

Id: hw96aQelQeY

Length: 9min 51sec (591 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020