For making Top Gun, a propaganda movie that doubtless funneled thousands or tens of thousands of kids into the military, Tom Cruise has been honored with the US Navy's highest civilian award

Speaking from experience, yes. This is the level of military humor.

Nope. When traveling by seas, we usually leave that up to the Navy.

Manpower is misleading because the manpower for each branch is determined every year based on ongoing missions, requirements, and a bunch of other minute details. A jump in manpower doesn't mean we got more recruits applying that year, just that we approved a certain level of manpower and filled those positions.

I was talking about recruitment; the people actually showing up at recruiter's offices trying to join the service. The year that Top Gun and its sequel came to theaters, our Air Force recruiters met their recruitment quotas in a heartbeat. Meanwhile, I'm told, the Navy recruitment was mostly business as usual.

Maybe if the Navy's manpower was much higher that year, they struggled to meet their annual quotas while the Air Force quickly filled up, and that's why it seems like the Air Force was more popular that year.

Honestly, it's a bit of a relief. None of us want to get old, but Hollywood seems to love middle aged men hoping around like they're 20. At a certain point you should be playing older roles.

No. He’s a cult leader and foul spirit (he tried the same thing on Scarlet Johannson before he succeeded with Katie PartyOf5) and he wears gender corrective shoes because he’s short & can’t stand it and he PUTS himself in front of cameras, he doesn’t avoid them like normal humans. WE GET TO JUDGE this unattractive old desperate irritating loser.

I agree, but I'm enough out of the loop that I didn't realize how old he looked. I saw the recent (and terrible) mission impossible movie and he didn't look nearly as old. I know movie magic and all, but that picture still surprised me.