Perhaps Not Entirely Advisable

Nothing came of it, since the "stranger" in question was me, and we were in an elevator in an office building, but:

Might I suggest that if you're in a public space with people you don't know standing around, it's probably not a good idea to make fun of the Army? Particularly in a way that mocks their collective intelligence? Especially if you're not military or ex-military yourself and can't play off any unpleasant escalations with the whole "Hey, man, I'm in the Navy/Marines/Air Force, you know, professional rivalry, all in good fun, ha ha," thing. I had no ability to glean the conversational context, but this guy - who, by the way he said it, clearly wasn't military - said to a companion something like "The Army isn't very bright, are they?" In addition to being more or less wrong - as an institution you might think the Army has done some stupid things, but they're undeniably very good at the job they're supposed to handle, and that requires having a lot of intelligent people around. And, really, bad idea. You don't know who's Army or not and who might be incline to get in your face or not. I mean, I don't look like I'm ex-military, which is good because I'm not, but a friend's dad was a Ranger (or was he a Green Beret?) in Vietnam, and I wouldn't have at all guessed it to look at him. Anyway.