The Few. The Proud.

The Septuagen-arines.

The picture above is a famous optical illusion.

If you look at it one way, you'll see a young woman in 4/5 profile.

If you look at it another way, you'll see an old woman in full profile.

What I didn't know until today was that there's apparently a third alternative interpretation of this visual puzzle.

Apparently when some people look at it...

...they see this.

From the Boston Globe.

Marines try to recruit 78-year-old woman

March 25, 2006

SAUGUS, Calif. --Sonia Goldstein was flattered by the nice recruiting letter asking her to consider becoming one of "the few, the proud." But at age 78, she believes she's just a little old to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"I couldn't believe it," Goldstein told KCAL-TV on Friday. "My girls were sitting here ... we were in hysterics, we laughed so hard."

The letter told her the corps could use her unique language skills, but also warned that life as a Marine would test her physical and mental abilities "beyond anything you've ever known."

"There I am with my walker. I can't maneuver from here to there without it," said Goldstein, who added that her only language is English.

"I'll do whatever I could for this wonderful country we live in," she said. "But you know, this is kind of stretching it a bit."

The Marines ordinarily recruit people 18 to 27, said Maj. Joseph Kloppel, a corps spokesman. He said the letter must have been sent by mistake.

"Seventy-eight is obviously too old," Kloppel added.

This is obviously a funny, little mistake: What turns it into a “story” that made it into the Globe is the context.

The fact that after three years of disgraceful incompetence and lies, the Bush White House has succeeded in grinding down our armed forces to the breaking point.

Consider the cycle of denial and how fast it's spinning now.

First, some pundit asserts that recruitment is so fucked that we're now thinking of stop-lossing our soldiers into infinity. Or that since the 101st Chairborne who begged for this war refuse to step up and serve their Dear Leader with their bodies, the military is now going to be forced to lower its standards -- again -- and begin taking the sick, the elderly, the dim-witted and the insane.

Second comes the ferocious "How Dare You Insult Our Brave Troops!" denial.

Third comes a loooong silence.

Fourth, quietly, the military extends the tours of duty for our soldiers for another year and lowers its standards -- again -- and begins taking the sick, the elderly, the dim-witted and the insane.

Then we reset the pins and bowl another round.

So small wonder this story made the papers.

Three years ago, if you'd stopped a random citizen on the street and said, "Did you hear the Marines are recruiting senior citizens?", the answer would probably have been, "Bullshit."

Now, as we enter the fourth year of George and Dick's Excellent Iraqi Adventure, I'd be willing to wager that if you stopped a random citizen on the street and posed them the same question, the answer might very well be, "No shit."