We Were About To Become Empty Nesters. Then My Husband Made A Shocking Decision That Changed...

Joining at 55. Eff that, my exit gate was just coming into view.

All I can say is, wow. Not at all sure I would want to start this at 55 but bless him for doing it. That's about the time I left...

OK so he got in as a highly specialized surgeon. So he's not exactly running around in the muck like a 19 year old infantryman or going onto Airborne after Basic. He'll get one last hurrah out of this adventure in life as the Army sucks the final useful years out of him.

This does however hit home for me because it was 15 or so years ago I read a similar article in San Francisco Chronical. I was sitting at the maximum age (WITHOUT WAIVERS) totally oblivious to the fact I could still enlist.

Miserable in my financial analyst career as the mortgage lending industry headed down the drain. I left one sinking ship of a bank to land into another.

I stumbled upon a 60 year old joining as a LTC (it was a click bait headline), and I thought WTF?????

So I looked into it, found out that max age then was 42 (I was 38 at the time) and reached out to a recruiter, and here I am.

I read this OP article beginning to end. It was written by the subject's wife. It's written like it's the end of their world. Meh..... he'll be a doctor in uniform and subject to some military conformity, but as a Medical LTC I don't foresee a lot of hardships relative to what the common public associates with service. Nope, the ones with the hardships will be sprawled out on the operating table in front of him.

Nope, when he steps into a mobilization machine he'll step up to the line at CFC and his experience in line wearing Black Oak Leaves will be very different than a PFC's. Yes, he'll probably even be more uncertain of what's going on than the PFC, but he'll be handled with white gloves.

I'm torn reading the article. On the one hand it's professionals exactly like himself that motivated me to research the possibilities of enlistment for myself and the path I've taken ending up at BCT at age 39 with the near impossible goal of becoming a commissioned officer.

Then on the other hand I read this article by his wife and I think HEY WAIT A MINUTE!!!!!!!!!!! He's coming in as a LTC surgeon, that's WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DIFFERNT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! than coming in as a nearly 40yo E4.

See.............. I can totally relate this LTC will be down range somewhere and the A/C will be on the fritz of his break room, and he'll have a moment to pause with the decisions in his life that led him there. He'll realize, wow, a year ago I was in a cushy office and now I'm here in a 3rd world situation with no one to quickly fix my A/C.

Where as my moment of reflection in life was as an 42y/o E5 sitting in a machinegun nest on a M249 at 0200hrs in AFG thinking about my life choices as a CFA/MBA thinking HOW THE FACK DID I GET MYSELF INTO THIS?????

Sooooooooooo.............. I'm really humbled by the commitment these professionals made at their stages of their careers. Without this class of individuals I simply wouldn't have picked up the phone to a recruiter either.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! His wife really needs to chill................ At least he didn't join as a Banker with no useful military skills and didn't have to join from the very bottom of the food chain and crawl his way up every single step of the way. He's literally two ranks away from being a General.

He's lucky, he'll be at an age where by time he fully understands the bureaucratic machine that is the Army he'll be out.

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I'm humbled by folks like him that led the way for folks like me, but his wife............... sigh.................