Wednesday, July 20, 2005

This Is Not Your Grandpa's Army... Or Is It?

Army Times is reporting that DOD has requested congress to increase the age for persons to enter the army to 42 years of age. That makes Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg eligible to enlist now. Go get them boys (and yes, that includes you, Ann).

This kinda makes you wonder if a draft is getting closer to being a reality.

Uncle Sam wants you – even if you’re 42 years old
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer

The Defense Department quietly asked Congress on Monday to raise the maximum age for military recruits to 42 for all branches of the service.
Under current law, the maximum age to enlist in the active components is 35, while people up to age 39 may enlist in the reserves. By practice, the accepted age for recruits is 27 for the Air Force, 28 for the Marine Corps and 34 for the Navy and Army, although the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve sometimes take people up to age 39 in some specialties.

The Pentagon’s request to raise the maximum recruit age to 42 is part of what defense officials are calling a package of “urgent wartime support initiatives” sent to Congress Monday night prior to a Tuesday hearing of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee.

At that hearing, David S.C. Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said he felt the military’s recent problems with recruiting were improving, but that additional incentives would help.

Chu mentioned the age change in passing during the hearing but gave no other details, such as whether any of the services were seriously considering recruiting 42-year-olds.

(Full Story)

H/T No Mr. Nice Guy

P.S. also take the IS IT ANN COULTER -- OR IS IT DAVID DUKE? test at his site.

1 comment:

Jeff (no, the other one) said...

Holy Hand Grenades, Batman! Where's that draft comin' from?!?

I just turned 41... my younger brother is 37 (and did 12 years in the reserves). Frightening.