I didn't get that at all -- perhaps because I'm a young guy, I saw it as a cautionary tale for me. "Cautionary tale" is not "whiner." It's not "bad crap happen

I didn't get that at all -- perhaps because I'm a young guy, I saw it as a cautionary tale for me. "Cautionary tale" is not "whiner." It's not "bad crap happened to me" at all; in fact, that was the whole point of his story (don't just "let" things collapse around you in order to return some kind of predictability and order to a situation you're too weak to handle). I saw it as a "learn from my mistake" post. Those are invaluable; I'd rather learn from his mistake than my own. I understand you when you say "It's unimportant what you overcame in the past." Fair enough. To extend it, though, and say "What happened in the past is unimportant" is to say "I'll cheerfully repeat the mistakes I and others have made," which is hardly a recipe for success. Learn from history so as not to repeat it. All win, no lose. He told his story, described his (unwise, etc) decisions us to learn from, and did it with helicopters and forward recon to boot.