Still Some Fight Left in Them (The Over 50 AARP soldiers in Iraq)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-oldsoldiers11nov11,1,5071934.story?coll=la-home-headlines

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."