!

I have had bad knees since almost when my Army career started.  Made it through Basic OK, went to Monterey and started hitting sick call.  See, that's back before the Army admitted that there was such a thing as "stretching before exercise"--at least they didn't even try to claim that the "Daily Dozen" met that requirement--and all PT was done in Combat Boots, including long runs.  (When I retired, there were still people who felt we should do it that way, "You're not gonna stretch and changed in running shoes in combat...")

The Presidio of Monterey, location of the Defense Language Institute, is built on a hill.  Company A, to which (at the time) all non-Slavic Language students were assigned, was at the top of the hill.  We would do a few jumping jacks side-straddle hops, some push ups, a couple of squat thrusts*, and then run down the hill and then back up it.

The diagnosis always varied, often containing a variation on "patella-femoral", which is a fancy way of saying "Your knee is shot." Amounts to bursitis of the knee.  Started in the left, by the time I retired the right was doing it occasionally.  I used to kjoke about sitting on the front porch in my rocking chair after retirement, rubbing my knee and saying "Yep, gonna rain..." or maybe "Gonna be a rough winter..."

This last winter I realized that I have gained a super power:  When both knees have me begging strangers to grab an axe and amputate, it's gonna rain.  Or snow.

Know anyone hiring a weather prophet?

*Later revealed to be an evil commie plot of an exercise, possibly introduced by the staff of the San Francisco Russian Consulate who liked to hang around PoM....