[ WP ] [ TT ] The oldest person in the world is now officially a person who is a veteran of every single war his country has been in since WW1 . Reporters ask him how he has lived so long . His answer ? `` Make sure death is too afraid to come for you . ''

“ Stuck in pits of mud that slowly eat you up as flashes of rockets and gunfire ripping through the air, death becomes a familiar face. He ’ s always hovering around you, embracing your cherished enemies and despised loved ones. He ’ s always haunting your thoughts in the back of your mind as you rush enemy lines trying to avoid mines. He taunts and teases you when a stray bullet grazes your cheek or your friend ’ s legs are blown to bits. Death and I were old friends in those days, always competing with each other to see who could outdo one another, but like most friends, he we had a falling out when he took my mother while I did my damnedest to impress him. 
 
 “ From that day, he tried to take me, too, but I always refused, narrowly avoiding sniper fire and just barely tossing back grenades from hiding places. I ’ ve been left for dead in ditches and in forests in strange parts of Europe where civilization never seemed to rear its ugly head, but every time Death came, I refused to yield. By the time of Korea, I grew indignant and impatient with ancient concept. 
 
 “ I grew to know more like an enemy than a friend. I wanted to understand how he worked and what made him tick. When I tortured soldiers on the wrong side of the war, I grew close to Death and watch him personally take perfectly honorable yet broken men. I learned his tactics as I dissected villagers in Vietnam and by his own omission, he grew scared of me. With a necklace of severed ears loosely hanging around my neck, though too old for fighting a war filled with youth, I became one with the dark and wet Vietnamese jungle, striking horror into both the eyes of unfortunate men and the blackened sockets of Death himself. Men, women, and children became nothing more than anatomy charts made to summon my oldest friend and enemy as I stuffed the throats of villagers with dirt until they vomited mud and blood. 
 
 “ If you want to know how to live long, then make death too afraid to come for you. But when innumerable years pass through your hands and you can ’ t understand how to love another human, you ’ d wish you never did. Every night, decades of war ring through my mind and though I ’ m not in the trenches anymore, I ’ ve realized I trapped myself in a never-ending war. At the same time my body is withering into nothingness, so I ’ m nothing more than a war-torn mind trapped in a failing body. 
 
 “ You really want my advice on how to live life? Take every opportunity to live and love it, but when your time comes, embrace Death with open arms. ” 
 
 ***** 
 
 r/Andrew__Wells
