I feel for these guys. And I know they passed the PT test. But no matter what shape you are in, exhaustion sets in over 40. I don't think we should send anyone in over that age. That was one reason for the pension at 20 years.
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Still Some Fight Left in Them
Patriotism and pensions keep soldiers over 50 in the military's reserve units, where green recruits are soaking up their savvy.
By David Lamb
Times Staff Writer
November 11, 2003
BAGHDAD — In December, just before the Florida National Guard's 124th Infantry Regiment was mobilized for the war in Iraq, Sgt. James Flores' 23-year-old son asked him, "Dad, why do you have to do something like this at your age?" Flores, 49, replied, "Son, it's still my turn."
Flores was to report for active duty at noon, Dec. 27. At 10:15 that morning, he hurried into the office of a justice of the peace near Kissimmee, his fiancee in tow, to get a marriage license. The clerk said there was a three-day waiting period. "Ma'am, I can't wait that long," Flores said. "I'm going to war." The clerk replied, "Let me see what the judge says."
Twenty minutes later, he and his bride were married, and about an hour after that, Flores was an active-duty soldier, beginning the long journey to Iraq, where the 124th remains, having been in the war zone longer than any other U.S. unit.
A few days ago, resting on his cot after a nighttime patrol in the brutal streets of Baghdad, Flores, a grandfather, sat bolt upright: "It hit me all of a sudden. I said, 'Oh, Lord, I turn 50 tomorrow.' I never thought in my lifetime that I'd be at war at that age."
With his birthday, which he celebrated on another patrol, Flores dashed the notion that war belongs to only the young and joined a minority of servicemen and women who, at 50 and above, have gone to battle.
Fewer than 1% of U.S. troops are in the 50-to-59-year-old bracket, which makes up 12% of the nation's population.
While it is not unusual for senior officers and noncommissioned officers to achieve "senior citizen" status in the military — Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, is 52 — Flores is still one of the foot soldiers, pulling guard duty, eating MREs, staying in shape and, as best he can, thinking young.
"To tell you the truth, I don't see much difference between what I do and what a 19-year-old does," said Flores, who works two jobs as a cook back home in Kissimmee. "I passed the annual PT [physical training] test, and I saw some 22-year-olds who couldn't. That made me feel really proud."
Like Flores, most in the 50-and-over crowd are members of the National Guard or Reserves. With the regular Army downsized and stretched thin by commitments in places ranging from South Korea and the Balkans to Afghanistan and Iraq, members of the Guard and Reserves, once weekend warriors, are increasingly an integral part of the nation's active-duty forces. The Army's strength has fallen from 770,000 soldiers in 1989 to 480,000.
Nearly 38,000 National Guard troops and reservists are in the Middle East, deployed in the Iraq effort. The Guard's Iraq mission is by far the largest "peacetime" deployment in what it calls its 367-year history.
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