Soldiers will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon - Happybadger, 2024

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustBootThings/comments/18s9zrk/always_first_in_line_at_applebees/kf6miib/

What gets me is that nothing about his ribbon rack is intimidating. He's trying to scream "look at the 20 year-old that can run a mile instead of the doughy 60 year-old in front of you" in the most painfully desperate way he can, but the most war-adjacent thing in his ribbons is the Combat Action Ribbon. That's a bog standard ribbon given to everyone on a ship that someone shoots at. His reservist ribbon shows 30 years of service so he wasn't even in the real Navy, let alone the real military. One weekend a month he pretended to be, taking a two week pleasure cruise every year to make sure he knew what a ship looks like in case all the actual sailors die. His air crew badge means he was probably like an aircraft mechanic or electronics guy.