May I add some advice recently acquired?
If you want to avoid unnecessary trips to A&E don’t charge into rucks head first. Furthermore, when you’re clearing out and bridging a ruck it’s important to bind on otherwise you’ll go flying through it, fall flat on your face and then the ruck will move backwards onto you thereby bruising some ribs and causing concussion.
What about someone else?
In the mid ‘60’s I knew an ex USAF guy who had just finished a tour at Bien Hoa AFB in the RVN. He claims the AF awarded him a Purple Heart for being drunk and falling into a ditch (breaking an ankle and some cuts and bruises). He told me that since the base was under fire at the time (actually a US Army unit on the perimeter some distance from him) the AF said it was justified.
I don’t know if what he said is true and he told the story as an example of AF foolishness and against out involvement in the war.
He was a mail clerk - how involved could he have been?
I would like to institute a program where everyone aged 30 and up has to fill a daily quota by smacking upside the head anyone aged 20 and under on general principal! :>) After all, they ARE up to something, even if they don’t know it yet!
I was once lost in an EXPANSIVE parking garage outside of a major shopping mall. A bit of booze, combined with frustration and youthfull machismo, made the idea of climbing down a tree from the third level seem plausible. … It wans’nt! The first limb I grabbed broke after I applied all of my weight, and I bouced from tree to wall, to tree, to wall, all the way down! Hurt like hell! Broke three fingers, but my pride suffered the most! Never fully recovered, I’ve been a bit humbler ever since!
Hi colmhain,
don’t be so hard with yourself… The life of everyone is so crowded of braggings, made expecially in one’s youth, that we may probably write a book about it…:oops:
If it may be a comfort, i’m not to be in the first flush of youth, but the wish to make things so difficult for myself, it’s a neverending story. Immaturity? Fear of routine? Something of genetic? Who knows it… 
Take care of you, but don’t forget to have fun…
That the young “…are up to something, even if they don’t know what…” pretty much defines the problem - they don’t know. We (the “wiser elders”) should know what we are up to - but personally I still don’t have much of a clue (especially when it comes to women)!
There has been much speculation about what we would do differently if we had the chance to live our life again - I’m afraid I would probabley make the same stupid mistakes.
I agree 200%.
Me too.
I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
You are a wise man.Be everything. There is always time to grow up if you really feel the need to…
I’d just like to add, that I suffered another concussion this weekend. The lesson here is; superman tackles may look very cool but often you end up injuring yourself and then find there is currently under international rugby rules a three week ban on playing or training after a concussion.
It comes as something of a surprise that rugby is concerned about any injuries, least of all head injuries. 
Still, the world changes in strange ways. My son had his first mixed martial arts fight under professional rules a couple of weeks ago. The following bout, on the same professional rules which allow pretty much anything except elbows and head butts, had a couple of sheilas who went at it real hard, with one of them losing a fair bit of claret from early in the first round and a lot more claret in the second round and then getting decked hard, but not quite for the count, in the closing seconds of the second round. As the third round was about to start it was announced that the sheilas wouldn’t be be fighting any more “because we don’t want people to get hurt”. It seems I misunderstood something about the nature of the event. 
The ones that misunderstood something about the nature of martial arts fights, wasn’t you RS, but the members of the Organizing Committee and the Umpires…
It wasn’t enough clear the “risks” that a fighter have to face during such an event like that? Or the only experiences they had, were the Chuck Norris movies? 
Here in Italy (maybe overthere too…), there is a saying that goes " You can’t beat a woman, not even with a flower…" They probably were strong believers of this philosophical spirit… :shock:
Not only the world changes in strange ways, but the mind of people, too…
I think a lot of sporting bodies are rather scared of getting sued for not enforcing safety rules. I’m particularly gutted as it means I’ll miss the end of the season :evil:
I’ve also thought that the more claret that gets shed unintentionally the better the sport. World cup later this year, care to place a bet (sportsmen’s bet naturally) on who’ll win Rising sun?
Speaking of sports, I have to brag.
My Grand nephew last month won his states High School Wrestling Championship (Heavy weight division)!
I so impressed with this kid, especially since this is an individual - as opposed to team- effort. He has also received academic awards and wants to be an Infantryman (Marines or Army) then a Cop.
There is hope for the next generation.
Alas, no.
Assuming you’re referring to the round ball game with theatrical dives and a lot of hysterical running around with shirts off and vigorous man hugging, it’s not something that figures on our radar down here. At least not among most of those of us kangaroo-born sons of Anglo-Irish lineage, of whom I am proudly one. (Proudly the Irish bit, although I have a bit of Cornish in me, which I think is generally agreed by me and my Cornish ancestors and their successors to be different to Anglo in the sense of English. )
This is the sort of man-hugging we like in our oval ball game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfkOeckK_yc&feature=related
Some of our rugby players also go in for a different sort of man hugging. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrayiRYuRk
You don’t have all the bragging rights.
My son is army reserve infantry aiming to deploy at least to a peacekeeper mission ASAP and Afghanistan if it doesn’t end before he’s quallified to go, and then he wants to be be a cop.
However, I’m not sure that this bodes too well for the generation after his, given that he’ll be policing them.
I was in fact referring to the oval ball game, Rugby union. To me ‘football’ or ‘soccer’ is a swearword and should not be tolerated in polite company.
To me, “football” is Auburn University being National Champions this year, WAAAAAARRRR EEAAAGLLLLLE! Soccer is, what, something you put your socks on with?! ;>) I’ve a few football injuries myself. Broken right hand, broken left wrist, couple of concussions…ad infinitum.
‘Soccer’ is for nancy boys who wear too much hair gel and diamond stud earings.
Hi Iron Yeoman,
after i heard about all your physical troubles, i got little worried about you. That’s why, if you allow me, i would advise you the madical treatments of this registered nurse. Her specialization are concussions and fractures. (she can fix every kind of bone… ;)). Don’t be shy. Call her.