Great article, and unfortunately full of facts about the "real" Hawaii. I'll have to keep an eye on the local papers when he finishes training.
Interesting Article
The points that got me was that
1) this guy was living on the edge at 40,
2) the Army is accepting people upto 42.
3) the Army is still offering a way out of poverty (my dad was an example)
4) when he puts his 30 years in he will be 70
Good for him for doing it though
I think the age 42 limit is the max permitted by legislation (which until now the services have always set lower) in order that they're retired before Social Security eligibility. So it may not last until 30, although it's possible.
Staying past 60 requires approval literally by an act of Congress. For example Rickover's downfall was outliving his supporters, and even guys like Fallon are on a short leash to both the C-in-C and the legislature. CJCS Mullen graduated from USNA in 1967 but he'll be there for at least one term, maybe two.
In 1991 I served with a guy who was born in 1941 (a few months before the Pearl Harbor attack). He had commissioned nuclear submarines that I'd only read about in history books, and his "Unknown But True" stories of the early days of Navy nuclear power were as entertaining as they were scary. But from 1966 until 1982 he tried to survive as a retail employee and finally gave it up to return to the submarine force.
He was a blessing and a curse. The troops called him "Grandpa" (because he is one) and he was a wonderful stabilizing influence on some of the wilder teenagers. However he was also functionally deaf and had lost his night vision, something that made him a tough guy to work with as a member of the midwatch ship's control party. He was finally shunted to a less-critial job (requiring neither hearing nor much vision) until he was eligible for shore duty-- where he made a wonderful instructor.
It's very common to see drilling Reservists in their high 50s, and more than a few of them have deployed to the desert. A friend of ours, already wearing three Purple Hearts from his Vietnam FMF corpsman days, was mobilized just before his 59th birthday and came home only because he was expected to retire. I remember one article about the "Galloping Grannies" who were in charge of troubleshooting logistics problems in Iraq ("Dude, where's my parts?"). With the credibility implied by their gray hair and their "personal interaction skills", they were much more effective at getting answers out of the staff & bureaucracy than the typical sergeant or captain would have been.
Sounded like he didn't finish by the way the author wrote the last paragraph.
"He is scurrying on his belly, and it is the feel of the cool sand in his hands that returns him, he will say later, to Teresa and Kalani, to the life left behind."
I interpret that to mean that it recalled memories of the sand on his home beaches.
