Depictions of Army recruits commonly evoke images of recent high school graduates reciting the oath of enlistment, but recruits whose call to service comes later in life could represent an untapped demographic for an Army struggling to fill its ranks. 

After her first year at Western Kentucky University, Mitisha Martin joined the Kentucky Army National Guard, but her heart and head “were not in the right place.”

She was navigating life as a young adult, and she was not ready. Her time with the Guard ended after a month, but her dream to serve never did. “The passion was still always there, but it just was not the season for me,” Martin said. 

When she returned home, Martin worked long hours in a factory and felt like she was “going in a circle in life.” That changed when Martin began working as a dental assistant and set her sights on the Army again.

“I went to the recruiter’s office, and I said, ‘I want to join. I’m ready,’” Martin said. “I made a beeline to where I needed to get to, and that’s just kind of all I really remember about that. I wasn’t necessarily scared. I was ready for it. I was ready to tackle that adventure.” 

Martin got a waiver to join the Kentucky Army National Guard again, and at 22 years old, she excelled, graduating from basic training in the top 10% of her class. 

Now a major who has served for 26 years and a dentist with the Kentucky National Guard Medical Detachment, the Army meant a new beginning for Martin. 

“It gave me the second chance at life because when I went through that first time, … I wasn’t ready. I thought there were more important things at home for me, and I was young,” Martin said. “The combination of finding dentistry and the military giving me a second chance, I think it definitely changed my life.”

Martin’s story is one among many. 

In 2018, for example, 22- to 35-year-olds made up over one-quarter of first-term enlisted personnel, according to a 2022 Rand Corp. report called “Identifying Opportunities to Recruit More Individuals Above the Age of 21 into the U.S. Army.”

Those numbers may just scratch the surface of so-called older recruits, according to Rand researchers. Older recruits “may still represent a small proportion relative to the potential for quality recruits in this age group in the general population,” the report says. 

For many older recruits, the Army was a dream deferred. “A lot of them were considering enlisting at younger ages, and then something happened along the way,” said Michael Pollard, a senior sociologist with Rand and lead author of the 2022 report. “They got married, they went to college, and it kind of went on the back burner. Then things later in their life remind them that, ‘Oh, [the Army] was sort of an interesting option.’”

Quality Over Quantity

In today’s challenging recruiting environment, the Army could make use of service-eligible individuals over the age of 21. 

Every branch of the U.S. military struggled to meet its fiscal 2022 recruiting goals, with the Army missing its target by about 15,000 soldiers. Still, Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville reaffirmed that the Army will seek quality recruits. “We are not going to lower standards,” he said in October at the 2022 Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition. “Quality is more important than quantity.”

Recruits over 21 are “one potentially undertapped group that could provide qualified and interested prospects,” the 2022 Rand report said.

These recruits bring a unique combination of quality and experience. Compared with soldiers who join before age 20, older recruits “have attained higher levels of education or have greater life experience and, once in service, are more likely than younger recruits to reenlist and be promoted,” according to the Rand report. 

Recruits with “some college education” made up one-fifth of accessions in 2022, said Brig. Gen. John Cushing, deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. “Twenty percent of those that we enlisted actually had some college or a community college or vocational experience,” he said. “We … visit colleges, we visit … technical schools [and] we visit community colleges … to certainly get the message out there.”

Waivers May Be Needed

Older recruits are more likely than their peers to need waivers to join the military, and some recruiters interviewed by Rand felt that wait times for waivers could deter older recruits. 

Individuals who join later “face more disqualifications based on their circumstances,” as one recruiting company interview cited in the study said.

For older recruits, the most obvious hurdle could be age itself. Though the maximum age to join the Army as an enlisted soldier is 35 and officers must accept their commission by 31, “it’s possible to receive an age waiver if you [can] retire with 20 years of military service by age 55,” according to the Army.

Beyond age, older recruits also may need medical waivers due to injuries and surgeries they have had, and they are more likely to have experienced legal events that require a waiver, like minor drug possession charges, because they have more life experience.

The Army is always looking to strike a balance, Cushing said. “It’s a balance between making sure that we keep the quality up and … not wanting people to lose interest while they’re waiting for a waiver to go through the process,” he said.

“We are in constant review of that process and working very closely with our medical partners to find out how we speed that process up but then ensure that we’re still getting the same quality out at the other end.” 

Different Kind of Applicant

Early in his career, the BMW that Sgt. 1st Class Rafael Diaz drove was enough to capture the attention of potential recruits who were in high school. But the people he is trying to make an impression on today are more concerned with issues like career advancement, education and student loans. 

Diaz, a recruiter with the 6th Medical Recruiting Battalion in Las Vegas, is appealing to a different kind of applicant now: those who want to serve the Army through medicine. 

“My message for older applicants is, ‘Do you want a job, or do you want a career?’ The Army can offer you a career, and not necessarily in the Army the whole time,” Diaz said. “The Army helps [its soldiers pursuing medicine] along the way.” 

Lt. Col. Doris Kore is one of those soldiers whose calling to serve the Army through medicine came later in life.

Undeterred by a Navy recruiter who said that she was “too old” and an Air Force recruiter who said “there were no openings for a dentist close to base,” an Army recruiter changed her path forever. “Why are you waiting for the Air Force to create a spot for you?” he asked Kore. “We have a lot of openings.” 

Intrigued, Kore had lunch with the Army recruiter to learn more. “I picked my recruiter’s brain,” Kore said. “One day we went out for lunch, and I had a piece of paper and pen, and I was writing everything down. He was throwing out all these abbreviations. I didn’t know anything.” 

One year after beginning a dental specialty program that meant going back to school after having her own practice for a decade, Kore recited her oath of office at the age of 50. Twelve years later, she is now a dentist with the U.S. Army Reserve’s 7230th Medical Support Unit in Riverside, California. 

“It’s an honor for me to serve the country,” Kore said. “In my family, I was the only one who was in the Army. Being as old as I am, I am qualified to be in the Army because of my profession. Because of my profession, the Army honors me and keeps me in the Army.” 

Kore’s daughter, Lydia, has since joined her mother in the ranks. She is a captain serving as an orthopedic surgery resident at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston at Joint Base San Antonio.

One advantage older soldiers have is they can leverage their life experience to mentor younger soldiers, said Maj. Tina Strobel, a behavioral health officer with the Kentucky National Guard’s 1163rd Medical Company Area Support. 

“I’ve been a social worker for well over 30 years,” said Strobel, who commissioned when she was 47. “I felt like I had something to offer the Army in terms of my expertise. I’ve gotten in and worked with younger soldiers. I also feel like I can help educate people and help them grow and develop as people as well.” 

As the Army continues to grow and modernize, older recruits, who often have more education and experience, will continue to play a role in redefining what service in the Army looks like. 

Soon after Strobel returned from a 2021 deployment to Poland, four soldiers she served with recognized her for her mentorship. “They presented me with a necklace and they [said], ‘We want to thank you; we still appreciate the time you spent with us,’ ” Strobel said. “They gave me a nice necklace that basically said ‘Resilience,’ because that’s how they see me.” 

Though the road to joining the Army later is not without its challenges, it is worthwhile, said Maj. Timothy Elliott, a chaplain recruiter. 

“You have to be able to work in a team, and you have to learn to work with people that are very different from yourself. If they are willing to take up that challenge and willing to work with other people, there is a place in the Army for them,” Elliott said. “We need that wisdom.” 

For many soldiers who joined later, including Strobel, their only regret is not joining the Army sooner. “I said this at my promotion: It’s never too late, and you’re never too old to do the things that you really want to do and things that are important to you,” Strobel said. “Don’t think that there’s any barriers.”