Skip to content
DUFFEL BLOG

Free military brief. No CAC required.

For more than a decade, we've deployed pitch perfect satire to service members around the world.

Join thousands of troops, veterans, and defense insiders who read Duffel Blog before breakfast.

“A must-read for national security nerds.”

—The Daily Beast
Subscribe form

Free. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

14years publishing
4,200+dispatches filed
17,000+readers briefed

The Duffel Brief · the free edition, Monday, Wednesday and Friday

Vol. 15 · No. 121 · Saturday, 10 October 2026

Pentagon

Hegseth opens up new TradWife MOS

Army says new career field will allow warfighters to focus on lethality while someone else remembers the kids

DTS works properly after hack by rogue AI

Lincoln sailor returning from deployment already broke

Three editions a week, paid for by our subscribers

Vol. 15 · No. 121

Worldwide edition

Reader supported

Delivered 3× weekly

America's most trusted military news source

Duffel Blog

Established 2012 · Deployed worldwide

Vol. 15 · No. 121 · Deployed worldwide

Saturday

10 October 2026

2122 Zulu

Next edition Monday

← Front page
Veterans · Page 2

Study confirms best time to be in military was exactly 5 years before you joined

Every generation agrees: yours ruined everything.

Filed · 0500

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.

Also on this page

Your Cart

Your cart is empty

Browse the shop to find something you like.

Continue Shopping →
Subtotal

Add more for free shipping.

✓ You qualify for free shipping!