Warning to Bansksiaman [changed to modnote]

[Peter_Morris]

Thank you. Good decision.

[BigT]

Huh. I initially read it as an insult, too. I think a bit of a wording change would make it clearer (at least to me). Instead of asking the whole thing as a rhetorical question, you could state it outright:

It sounds like you actually took Intelligence 101, right? When you say 'Army," you actually mean the ones with uniforms and guns and not the KISS army [not that there’s anything wrong with that]. You use the word ‘former’ in the sense of having been something and now note, and not in a special tense, known only to you, to mean never quite got started.

I only ask because Syndey Powell clearly didn’t and look where she’s ended up – being considered for a job in the dying days of the Trump presidency. I’d hate to have that happen to me.