Gagetown — Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance announced this morning that he feels there have been far too many Bill Murrays enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces this past year, which has caused both confusion and disorder at the 5th Canadian Division Support Base in Gagetown.

“These kids are watching old army comedies like Stripes or MASH, and thinking that they’re going to be the ‘Bill Murray’ of their group,” explained Sgt. Stirling, a senior drill instructor at the base. “We can’t have everybody being the odd man out. It just doesn’t work that way.”

The problem is that a steadily increasing number of young men have been entering the Canadian Armed Forces with the notion that they are going to be the all-around coolest dude on the base. This idea has lead to an over-saturation of Bill Murrays in any given group of new recruits.

“Sometimes you’ll have as many as 4 Bill Murrays, 2 Alan Aldas and a Robin Williams all in one group,” said Sterling. “There’s nothing but wisecracks and wacky antics for days on end — it’s just chaos.”

The sergeant explained that groups that have too high a density of Bill Murrays tend to underperform for weeks, then at the very last moment pull it all together and stick it to those who didn’t believe in them — a strategy which he calls “annoying” and “unreliable.”

“We would love to see more Demi Moores or Goldie Hawns enlisting,” said Sterling. “But frankly, I miss the days when we would regularly get ourselves a good batch of Ben Afflecks and George C. Scotts.”

The sergeant then became very somber. “We once had a young man here that we sent in to combat, mistakenly believing that he was a Tom Hanks, but…” he paused for a moment to stifle a sob, “but he turned out to be nothing but a Pauly Shore. A poor, pathetic, useless Pauly Shore.”