It's really pointless for everybody to be telling stories--or, worse yet, passing on hearsay accounts--of this former young USAF Iraq ace unable to make an engine-out approach, or of that ancient mariner rescuing his 40-year-old F/O from a total screw-up.
It's all pointless story-telling. But there must be scientific evidence of cognitive decay--or of the lack thereof--in 70-year-olds. Anybody who can point to that has my attention. Otherwise it's just I-remember-the-time war-story telling. Sound and fury signifying nothing.