WASHINGTON - The last time Dr. Floyd Baker served in the U.S. Army, Harry S. Truman was president, Dinah Shore's "Buttons and Bows" topped the music charts, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" won an Oscar and the bikini made its debut on American beaches.
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"I was honorably discharged in 1948," said Baker, who was drafted in 1946 and left the Army with captain's bars on his shoulders. "I thought the letter belonged to somebody else, knowing when I got in the Army and when I got out. I thought it was a mistake."
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Baker's letters may be a simple bureaucratic mistake, but they're also symptomatic of how the U.S. military is struggling to fill its ranks as it's stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq. To help keep its numbers up, the Army recently expanded a little-used program to recall officers and enlisted personnel to serve voluntarily for up to a year.
More than 300 Army retirees from their mid-40s to their late 60s are on active duty through the program, said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army personnel spokesman.
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When you have to beg the old farts to sign up, something is going seriously wrong. I keep checking the mail for my recall notice.
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