thedrifter
03-15-07, 06:42 AM
BOOT CAMP | Sometimes the new kid looks a whole lot older
Nowadays, recruits can be as old as 42
Under Army’s new rules, hundreds work through the grueling routine to make new careers as soldiers.
By KEVIN MURPHY
The Kansas City Star
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. | Under his camouflage hat, Larry Wall’s close-cut hair is mostly gray. He’s heavy and his face is drawn — not unusual for a man of 40.
But when the drill sergeant says go, Wall jumps. He scales a cargo net in heavy boots. He crawls on his belly under barbed wire. He huffs and puffs to get over a seven-foot-high horizontal wood beam — not quite making it.
This is boot camp, and it isn’t just for the young anymore.
Fourteen months ago, the Army raised its age limit for recruits from 35 to 40 to meet ever-challenging recruitment goals. Last July, the limit rose again, to 42.
People like Wall saw opportunity.
“This is something I wanted to do my whole life,” said Wall, who left an accounting business in Alabama to join up. “Physically, it’s been challenging being 40, but every day gets a little better.”
In the first eight months under the higher age limit, the Army drew 653 recruits over 35. That was just enough for the Army to barely exceed its recruiting goal of 80,000 for the fiscal year ending last Sept. 30. From Oct. 1 through Feb. 12, the Army got more than 400 additional recruits over 35, including about 60 older than 40, officials said.
Wall and three others interviewed last week at the sprawling Army camp in south-central Missouri said they had no regrets about joining.
But recruits over 35 are having a harder time than younger ones making it through their first six months in the Army, data show.
About 12 percent leave within six months — mainly due to the physical demands — compared with 6 percent for all other recruits, said Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. Hilferty said he is not disappointed by the figures.
“The attrition is at the rate we expected,” Hilferty said. “If it was at 50 percent, we’d have to look at it.”
Army officials said that although the age limit was raised and some other recruitment standards were relaxed, it was not due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army says it simply wants to reach out to more people.
“You still have a lot of good Americans out there,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Tim Mace at Fort Leonard Wood. “You look harder to find them.”
A grueling routine
At Fort Leonard Wood, the recruits’ day begins in 5 a.m. darkness with push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, running and other exercises. The long day of field training, weapon and equipment drills and other tests ends at 8 p.m. After an hour of free time, lights are out at 9 p.m.
Basic training runs nine weeks. Recruits can sign up for as little as two years’ active duty, but most do four years.
Pvt. Ted William Fassler of Denver admits after nearly eight weeks of basic training that the routine drains his 41-year-old body.
“The difference is the recovery time,” Fassler said. “At 20, people can recover faster. After I go through those workouts, I don’t have the energy to run around or sing in the shower or whatever. I’m ready for bed.”
Most of the older soldiers hold up well, said Lt. Col. Denton Knapp, battalion commander at the fort. “They know how old they are, and they come here in pretty good shape,” Knapp said. Some older recruits joined because their son or daughter did.
The exercise regimen is adjusted slightly for age and gender, with fewer push-ups and slower running times expected of older recruits. That was the case even when the age limit was 35, Knapp said.
Recruit Ken Pons, 41, said basic training is a little more intense than he expected, but he quickly shed a nickname that younger recruits gave him.
“At the beginning, they called me Grandpa, but when Grandpa beat them at some things, that kind of faded away,” Pons said.
Married and with children ages 11 and 21, Pons said the biggest challenge of basic training is the drill sergeant “watching our every move.”
Asked why they’d join the Army after 40, the older recruits spoke about serving their country in a time of need. But some had more practical reasons — a career change or college ambitions.
For Wall, not joining the military always gnawed at him. All the men in his family were in the Navy or Marines. Wall went to college to play football, got married and had two daughters.
“My place in life now allowed me to do it,” said Wall, who is divorced. He said he doesn’t feel like he is in a time warp in the midst of people half his age. “This is where I am now. It makes me feel young again.”
Wall is in the same training company as Pons, who was a Coca-Cola delivery truck driver in California before joining the Army. Wall and Pons are in their fourth week of basic training.
“We have things in common to talk about — eight-track tapes and things like that that the kids wouldn’t understand,” Pons said, breaking a smile.
After his three-year stint, Pons wants to go to college with the Army’s help. Pons and Wall said their friends and family strongly supported their decision to join the military, with one exception. “My mom said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” Pons said.
Pons wishes he had gone into the Army as a career 20 years ago because now he would be closer to retirement. As it is, he will start over twice — once in the Army and again in college.
“I don’t feel out of place,” Pons said. “They are making me feel right at home here.”
Second careers
Fassler joined the Army partly because he wants to pay off nearly $65,000 in student loans and advance his education. He wants to get a doctorate in public affairs and work for the military or federal government.
Fassler, who formerly lived in Tipton, Mo., said his dad was a World War II veteran, and many of his friends served in the first Iraq war.
“There was always something in the back of my mind that I never did that when I was younger, and I regretted it,” Fassler said. “I thought, ‘Hey, it’s my turn.’ ”
Fassler, who is single, said he is not afraid of serving or dying in Iraq.
“You hear on the news about kids 20 years old with families dying,” Fassler said. “I don’t have a death wish or anything like that, but if it was me instead of someone who was 20 years old, OK. I’ve lived a beautiful, wonderful life. It would be less of a loss for me.”
Older recruits are just as likely as younger ones to see battle, Knapp said.
The older recruits, such as Sanjay Maheswari of Dallas, often come to the Army with a college education.
Maheswari, 41, has a degree in aerospace engineering but wants training to become a doctor’s assistant in an Army hospital.
“I saw this as an opportunity to make a dream come true,” he said.
Maheswari, 5 feet 7 inches and 144 pounds, wore 30 pounds of body armor during simulated rifle training one day last week. Married and with a 3-year-old son, the native of India said he was undaunted among recruits half his age.
“I don’t feel strange or anything different than the others,” Maheswari said. “It’s just part of the game. It’s duty, it’s obligation.”
Knapp said older recruits are better prepared emotionally than younger recruits for basic training.
“They have dealt with a lot of things and have developed coping mechanisms,” he said. “We see mature soldiers and role models.”
The Army has made other changes to draw more recruits. For example, it now will take recruits with visible tattoos. It is taking more recruits who score low on aptitude tests and more who are physically unfit.
The idea is inclusion, the Army says. But the pressure of the war has to be a factor, said military scholar Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a Washington group that believes in limited federal government.
“This is one of the very few positive things about war that in a moment of desperation our minds are open to possibilities we normally would not consider,” Thompson said. “In case of recruiting, the Army is more willing to recognize the value of experience and skill in people who would normally be too old to serve.”
By the numbers
653: the number of recruits over 35 years old the Army drew in the first eight months under the higher age limit.
400: additional recruits over 35 who signed on from Oct. 1 through Feb. 12. Of those recruits, 60 were older than 40.
To reach Kevin Murphy, call (816) 2324-4464 or send e-mail to kmurphy@kcstar.com.
Ellie
Nowadays, recruits can be as old as 42
Under Army’s new rules, hundreds work through the grueling routine to make new careers as soldiers.
By KEVIN MURPHY
The Kansas City Star
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. | Under his camouflage hat, Larry Wall’s close-cut hair is mostly gray. He’s heavy and his face is drawn — not unusual for a man of 40.
But when the drill sergeant says go, Wall jumps. He scales a cargo net in heavy boots. He crawls on his belly under barbed wire. He huffs and puffs to get over a seven-foot-high horizontal wood beam — not quite making it.
This is boot camp, and it isn’t just for the young anymore.
Fourteen months ago, the Army raised its age limit for recruits from 35 to 40 to meet ever-challenging recruitment goals. Last July, the limit rose again, to 42.
People like Wall saw opportunity.
“This is something I wanted to do my whole life,” said Wall, who left an accounting business in Alabama to join up. “Physically, it’s been challenging being 40, but every day gets a little better.”
In the first eight months under the higher age limit, the Army drew 653 recruits over 35. That was just enough for the Army to barely exceed its recruiting goal of 80,000 for the fiscal year ending last Sept. 30. From Oct. 1 through Feb. 12, the Army got more than 400 additional recruits over 35, including about 60 older than 40, officials said.
Wall and three others interviewed last week at the sprawling Army camp in south-central Missouri said they had no regrets about joining.
But recruits over 35 are having a harder time than younger ones making it through their first six months in the Army, data show.
About 12 percent leave within six months — mainly due to the physical demands — compared with 6 percent for all other recruits, said Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. Hilferty said he is not disappointed by the figures.
“The attrition is at the rate we expected,” Hilferty said. “If it was at 50 percent, we’d have to look at it.”
Army officials said that although the age limit was raised and some other recruitment standards were relaxed, it was not due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army says it simply wants to reach out to more people.
“You still have a lot of good Americans out there,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Tim Mace at Fort Leonard Wood. “You look harder to find them.”
A grueling routine
At Fort Leonard Wood, the recruits’ day begins in 5 a.m. darkness with push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, running and other exercises. The long day of field training, weapon and equipment drills and other tests ends at 8 p.m. After an hour of free time, lights are out at 9 p.m.
Basic training runs nine weeks. Recruits can sign up for as little as two years’ active duty, but most do four years.
Pvt. Ted William Fassler of Denver admits after nearly eight weeks of basic training that the routine drains his 41-year-old body.
“The difference is the recovery time,” Fassler said. “At 20, people can recover faster. After I go through those workouts, I don’t have the energy to run around or sing in the shower or whatever. I’m ready for bed.”
Most of the older soldiers hold up well, said Lt. Col. Denton Knapp, battalion commander at the fort. “They know how old they are, and they come here in pretty good shape,” Knapp said. Some older recruits joined because their son or daughter did.
The exercise regimen is adjusted slightly for age and gender, with fewer push-ups and slower running times expected of older recruits. That was the case even when the age limit was 35, Knapp said.
Recruit Ken Pons, 41, said basic training is a little more intense than he expected, but he quickly shed a nickname that younger recruits gave him.
“At the beginning, they called me Grandpa, but when Grandpa beat them at some things, that kind of faded away,” Pons said.
Married and with children ages 11 and 21, Pons said the biggest challenge of basic training is the drill sergeant “watching our every move.”
Asked why they’d join the Army after 40, the older recruits spoke about serving their country in a time of need. But some had more practical reasons — a career change or college ambitions.
For Wall, not joining the military always gnawed at him. All the men in his family were in the Navy or Marines. Wall went to college to play football, got married and had two daughters.
“My place in life now allowed me to do it,” said Wall, who is divorced. He said he doesn’t feel like he is in a time warp in the midst of people half his age. “This is where I am now. It makes me feel young again.”
Wall is in the same training company as Pons, who was a Coca-Cola delivery truck driver in California before joining the Army. Wall and Pons are in their fourth week of basic training.
“We have things in common to talk about — eight-track tapes and things like that that the kids wouldn’t understand,” Pons said, breaking a smile.
After his three-year stint, Pons wants to go to college with the Army’s help. Pons and Wall said their friends and family strongly supported their decision to join the military, with one exception. “My mom said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” Pons said.
Pons wishes he had gone into the Army as a career 20 years ago because now he would be closer to retirement. As it is, he will start over twice — once in the Army and again in college.
“I don’t feel out of place,” Pons said. “They are making me feel right at home here.”
Second careers
Fassler joined the Army partly because he wants to pay off nearly $65,000 in student loans and advance his education. He wants to get a doctorate in public affairs and work for the military or federal government.
Fassler, who formerly lived in Tipton, Mo., said his dad was a World War II veteran, and many of his friends served in the first Iraq war.
“There was always something in the back of my mind that I never did that when I was younger, and I regretted it,” Fassler said. “I thought, ‘Hey, it’s my turn.’ ”
Fassler, who is single, said he is not afraid of serving or dying in Iraq.
“You hear on the news about kids 20 years old with families dying,” Fassler said. “I don’t have a death wish or anything like that, but if it was me instead of someone who was 20 years old, OK. I’ve lived a beautiful, wonderful life. It would be less of a loss for me.”
Older recruits are just as likely as younger ones to see battle, Knapp said.
The older recruits, such as Sanjay Maheswari of Dallas, often come to the Army with a college education.
Maheswari, 41, has a degree in aerospace engineering but wants training to become a doctor’s assistant in an Army hospital.
“I saw this as an opportunity to make a dream come true,” he said.
Maheswari, 5 feet 7 inches and 144 pounds, wore 30 pounds of body armor during simulated rifle training one day last week. Married and with a 3-year-old son, the native of India said he was undaunted among recruits half his age.
“I don’t feel strange or anything different than the others,” Maheswari said. “It’s just part of the game. It’s duty, it’s obligation.”
Knapp said older recruits are better prepared emotionally than younger recruits for basic training.
“They have dealt with a lot of things and have developed coping mechanisms,” he said. “We see mature soldiers and role models.”
The Army has made other changes to draw more recruits. For example, it now will take recruits with visible tattoos. It is taking more recruits who score low on aptitude tests and more who are physically unfit.
The idea is inclusion, the Army says. But the pressure of the war has to be a factor, said military scholar Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a Washington group that believes in limited federal government.
“This is one of the very few positive things about war that in a moment of desperation our minds are open to possibilities we normally would not consider,” Thompson said. “In case of recruiting, the Army is more willing to recognize the value of experience and skill in people who would normally be too old to serve.”
By the numbers
653: the number of recruits over 35 years old the Army drew in the first eight months under the higher age limit.
400: additional recruits over 35 who signed on from Oct. 1 through Feb. 12. Of those recruits, 60 were older than 40.
To reach Kevin Murphy, call (816) 2324-4464 or send e-mail to kmurphy@kcstar.com.
Ellie