WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has confirmed what many service members have long feared: “You and your entire generation” indeed missed out on the best time to have served in the military, according to a massive 50-year longitudinal study conducted by retired E-7s with clipboards.

According to the study, which sampled thousands of veterans, respondents gave several reasons why they had served at the best time and everything after they separated was inferior.

“I served in the real Corps,” said Marine veteran Jude O’Farran, who served in the Marine Corps from 2014 to 2019. “Back in my day, we were fighters and brothers. This DEI nonsense would have never flown in my Marine Corps! We solved diversity the right way — by hazing everyone equally.”

“We also pulled out of the ‘Stan- like, how can you be a warrior without a war? That’s like being a glazier with no donuts or whatever,” O’Farran explained, while subtly showing off his right arm’s full sleeve tattoo of a Marine private in dress blues kissing the Statue of Liberty (wearing pasties and a g-string) next to a rendering of a freshly-slain Osama Bin Laden. The sleeve also shows a tiger with diamond eyes, for some reason.

“We had ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ back then which meant I always had a back up plan if someone pissed me off,” said former Navy sailor Jordan Cheng (1993 to 2013) before quickly clarifying, “No, I was definitely not going to tell on someone else but you better believe I had that threat in my back pocket, just in case. I knew all the Friends of Dorothy!”

Cheng and her wife, also a veteran, now live on a small ranch in Oregon and raise golden retrievers.