Sour job market drives older recruits, those with masters degrees into Army

As jobs get harder to find, work gets easier for Army recruiters

Traditionally the Army has attracted the young. But as the number of jobs dwindles across the country, more Americans are enlisting later in life, drawn by the promise of steady work and benefits.

By Alexandra Zavis
8:21 PM PDT, August 10, 2009

If you're looking for Michael March, he's probably in the basement, slogging on the treadmill. Or he may be doing push-ups in front of the TV.

At 38, he wants to be prepared when he begins Army basic training later this week. .

"I know I'm going to get picked on as the old guy in boot camp," he said. "I don't want to be last."

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Not long ago, the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion struggled to find applicants who met the minimum education requirements: a high school diploma or equivalent. Now, says the station commander, Staff Sgt. A.J. Calderon, he has people turning up with master's degrees.

"I've been a recruiter for four years, and I've never seen that before," Calderon said. "This is definitely a good thing for the Army."

More than 1,800 recruits who were 30 or older signed up for the Army in the first half of the 2009 fiscal year that began last October, a 59% increase over the same period last year. The Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion enlisted 63 of them, a 50% increase. An additional 713 people 30 or older joined the Army Reserve, including 22 in Los Angeles.

Although the pace slowed over the summer, recruiters say they continue to get inquiries from people well over 30, many of them facing financial hardship because of the loss of a job or reduced work hours.

March, who is from Torrance, signed up in April. If he was feeling anxious about the decision, he did not show it when he walked into the busy office in a Torrance strip mall two weeks ago to meet with his recruiter before shipping out to Ft. Sill in Oklahoma. He had already shaved his head, and he smiled broadly when he was asked to stand in front of an American flag for a commemorative snapshot.

March had drifted between jobs for years as he tried to raise the money to complete a computer science degree. In 2007, he was offered a position managing the bars at the Tulsa County Fairgrounds in Oklahoma and thought he might make a career in the food and beverage business. But last November, he was laid off. Already deep into debt, he returned to California and moved in with his father.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-older-recruits11-2009aug11,0,4342762.story

He made it... active duty too boot.