WASHINGTON, D.C. — A 67-year-old man who as a young boy lived under constant fear the Soviets would launch nuclear missiles at his beloved country and wipe out everyone and everything he loved characterized a terrorist group as an “imminent threat to every interest we have” late last week, sources confirmed.

The man, identified as Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, went on to say that militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) were “beyond anything” he’s ever seen, despite his once serving in a bloody conflict in southeast Asia against a cunning and brutal adversary which utilized guerrilla tactics, irregular warfare, and committed numerous war crimes, all while supported by pinko heathens in Moscow.

“These people, these terrorists of ISIL, represent a clear and present danger to the United States,” said Hagel, who in grade school hid under his desk with his classmates to practice what they should do in the event of a devastating nuclear attack by the Red Soviet menace. “And we must do everything in our power to stop them.”

According to several senior defense officials, a regional terrorist group which has seized parts of Iraq and Syria but has so far demonstrated no capability of attacking inside the U.S., poses a much graver threat to the homeland than a nuclear-armed Iran, a rising and increasingly militaristic China, or a country named Russia which was a Cold War adversary for 44 years that would now like a do-over.

“[ISIL] is an organization that has an apocalyptic end-of-days strategic vision,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, in support of Hagel’s points, while briefly thinking of the time when he was 10 years-old and those Commie bastards tried to park a bunch of nuclear missiles 90 miles off the coast of Florida, intent on launching them all at the U.S. — an action which would likely bring about an apocalyptic nuclear winter.

Hagel, who oversees a nuclear arsenal of more than 7,500 warheads that could wipe out every living thing on the planet at the push of a button, went on to say that he was appalled by the incredible threat posed by men armed with scimitars, AK-47s, and Twitter accounts.