"We?" I asked him.
"We," he explained carefully, as to a baby, "is a generic term for the army, the navy, the government, the world in general. As long as you live, as long as you continue to be able to do the things you can do now, a gun or an airplane is so much scrap metal. But—only as long as you live!"
That I didn't like. "You mean that—"
"Exactly what I said. As long as you're alive a soldier or a sailor might as well be a Zulu; useful for the length he can throw a spear or shoot an arrow, but useless as he now stands. There is no army, apparently, right now that is worth more than its body weight—again, as long as you live."
"Do you have to harp on that?"
"Why not? Do you want to live forever, or do you expect to?"
He had me there. You bet I wanted to live forever. "Well?"
He yanked pensively at his upper lip. "Two solutions; one, announce you to the world with a clang of cymbals and a roll of drums. Two, bury you someplace. Oh, figuratively speaking," he added hastily as he saw my face.
"Solution one sounds good to me," I told him. "I could go home then."