Sacrosanct
Legend
Doesn't matter if they intended to or not ("I'm sorry if you felt what I said was offensive" defense hardly every works well), or that they refused to apologize to me because they said it was my fault for taking that statement as problematic.The person who used it already clarified they didn’t intend to use it offensively. You’re reading that into their post.
I'm responding to what you said, and your defense of it, which is itself a problem. Any time you start defending something as non offensive because people who belong to the group use the term, you're on weak ground. I think it would be obvious, with the ton of historical precedence we have, why that's a really bad defense. Even your second paragraph gave me flashbacks to all those comments I've heard in the past about "Chief is a term of respect among native americans, so Kansas City Chiefs can't be offensive, it's complimentary!" Or "Gypsy can't be offensive, because they call themselves that!"
When you're making literally the same argument (just replace the group name) as people on racist forums are making as to why calling others certain names is OK, you might want to step back a second.
Note, I am not calling you a racist or bigot or anything. And I'm not saying using grognard as a pejorative is on the same level as using the N word. I'm only saying the presentation and reasoning behind your defense of that comment strikes a strong parallel to arguments made to defend bigotry in the past. And I'd really like to avoid going anywhere near an implication of "older people haven't suffered as much discrimination as PoC or women, so it's OK to make fun of them" which is already happening (not by you)
Again, how hard is it to just avoid using that term in a negative connotation to describe people you don't like? That's all I'm asking. Why is there such a resistance to that ask, and such a firm defense in using it?