FORT BRAGG — Soldiers at Fort Bragg are reporting an increase in hostile encounters with retirees at the commissary, pharmacy, and post exchange, in what younger troops say is the result of a dangerous shortage of useful idiots.

Retired Master Sgt. Frank Burger said he confronted one junior soldier after hearing him greet another with a sarcastic salute and the words, “For Epstein!”

“I had to correct him,” Burger said. “When we were your age, we just accepted we might die for oil. The country runs on the stuff, you know.”

Retirees across post said they are becoming increasingly frustrated with what they describe as a generational collapse in performative patriotism.

In recent weeks, soldiers reportedly training for a possible invasion of Iran have stopped using the greeting of the day and instead begun saluting each other while shouting, “For Epstein!” “For defense contractor quarterly earnings!” or “For previously undisclosed presidential equities!”

“Where are they getting these ideas?” Burger asked. “In my day, you were fighting for oil or freedom. Either way, it at least sounded like it was for the country. Now it’s like they’re workshopping it.”

Senior leaders are also said to be alarmed by troops’ growing refusal to accept internal propaganda, still referred to in official channels as “command information.”

“These soldiers need to get on board with the command’s accepted narrative,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command. “Lives are at risk. Who is going to storm the beaches of Hormuz for a defense contractor earnings call or someone’s personal legal exposure?”