Every person in the ranks waiting for their command is a threat to men in their midlife crisis. They see every younger person as a threat to what they are and the illusion of what they were. They have friends and Mums and Dads dying so it scares the hell out of them that they are now looking at death's door too and they feel that hanging on to what represents their youth and keeps their ego's vital will keep death away even longer. One day everyone faces this aspect of life, but for men who have been in such ego positions as Cathay A-scalers have been it is a long way down, and because it would never happen to them...they were immortal and indespensible they didn't plan or prepare for the inevitable. It is all fear of what has happened to them biologically.