WARFIGHTERS! As a step to making sure we are ready for warfare at all times, we have decided to ELIMINATE THE MANDATORY FLU SHOT! Nothing says “we are ready for war” like “we all have the flu.”
Get your hot-water bottles! Get your ibuprofen! Not Tylenol, though! It knows what it did. Because we are bringing FLU to the warfighters! Are you ready to have a RUNNY NOSE and an ITCHY THROAT? Are you ready to get REALLY SERIOUSLY DEHYDRATED AND NEED MEDICAL ATTENTION? Hoo-RAH!
We will terrify the enemy by coming in hot! And when I say hot I mean our temperatures! We will need COUGH DROPS, and we will knock those back, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH, with a sound more frightening than gunfire. This will strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. They will say things like “Do you need a tissue?” and “Are you okay?” and when they are offering us that tissue, we will strike. And then we will go back to bed and lie under a tactical pile of warfighting blankets. Peak performance is when you have a terrible headache and want to be asleep, and whenever you open your mouth you sound like someone took lawn shears to your vocal cords. YEAH!
We are going to experience BODILY ACHES and, of course, CHILLS! This is the warfighter way! Not having the flu was holding us back. When we are nondrowsy with maximum-strength medication we will perhaps even SEE GOD AND COMMUNICATE WITH HIM. (He is male and he loves it when you do a push-up! Recently, he whispered in my ear that war crimes are okay, confirming what I had always suspected to be true!)
If footage of me doing an incorrect push-up cannot intimidate America’s foes, the knowledge that our whole fighting force MIGHT HAVE THE FLU AT ANY TIME and is CERTAINLY VULNERABLE TO THE LATEST STRAIN will! Yeah, we aren’t afraid to stare death in the face. That will probably impress them.
I haven’t washed my hands in more than 10 years! I don’t see germs. I am the secretary of war, and I demand that every cell in my body be fighting at every moment. Especially the white blood cells (probably the most meritorious type of cell, and the only kind I would promote). I need them to fight all the time. That’s the Pete Hegseth legacy: pointless, unnecessary battles everywhere you look. Against the media. Against our own rules of engagement. Against history. Against the flu. All battles I am confident we can win, with little to no casualties. (Please do not tell me about any events that happened in the past, say between the year 1918 and the present.)
The best warrior is he who fights the most. Especially when he doesn’t need to. I think Sun Tzu said that. But I would never read Sun Tzu. First, he is from a nation I consider a geopolitical foe. And second, Sun Tzu is dead. I will never die. I am too strong a warrior.
Some say George Washington, who worked hard to inoculate the troops 250 years ago, would be ashamed of this development. I say, I’m ashamed of George Washington. He wasn’t man enough to face down disease unassisted. I bet he couldn’t do a single push-up.
The post Hegseth to the Troops: We Are Bringing Back the Flu! appeared first on The Atlantic.
