I don’t think that analogy goes far enough…
The sheer level of hurt that the USDF could put on them is completely on a different universe to anything they would have come up against previously.
They 100% could obliterate everything in that theatre that even resembles a “target” with little warning and zero real strain, it would be significantly less effort than some of the training exercises that happen.
Someone is clearly being paid by someone else to provoke a response or provide a distraction (I wonder who)
Which I think is probably why nothing too crazy has happened in response yet because why give them what they seem to want.
I don’t agree that this is necessarily a weakness or that it’s overly strange.
While they might not be able to quite hit the peak fitness of someone in their 20’s and 30’s, you also gain a large amount of meaningful mental fortitude as you get older.
In short you have seen more shit and dealt with more shit. So generally you can bear more headship and pain before breaking, also probably less prone to discipline issues, and the older ones likely provide a good example to the rest.
In a war for the survival of your nation all able bodied people are needed. There are naturally more older people than there are younger ones.