Source: Army doc, 74, ready to deploy to Afghanistan – Military- msnbc.com

Dr. John Burson

Photograph by John Bazemore / AP

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I just read this story over at MSNBC. It seems pretty crazy. Seventy-four year old ENT surgeon is getting ready to ship off to Afghanistan for a deployment with the Army.

I wonder what I’ll be doing when I’m 74 — of course, that’s assuming I do live that long. It’s hard to say these days. I’m not trying to sound suicidal. I just mean that there are so many unknowns. Nobody can really know how long they are going to live for.

But this whole story got me wondering about the Military Medicine system. I’m just wondering: Don’t they have any younger doctors? Is the situation that bad?

I suppose this could just be because the guy really loves deploying. I mean, it sounds like he does have fun with the excitement. I just hope it isn’t because our military is so desperately thinned out by this ongoing war that we have to resort to sending senior citizens into war zones when they should be enjoying retirement.