Would-Be Recruit May Be Over Hill but He’s More Than Ready to Fight

Michael Bakdash wants to be all he can be, but the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines say the 51-year-old unemployed man is too old.

“I can take whatever they can give out,” said Bakdash, who runs 35 miles a week. “I have even run in 30-degree-below-zero weather.”

Bakdash served a three-year hitch in the Air Force, but now he is 16 years older than the armed forces will accept for new enlistees.

“At 51, you run out of the ability to meet the physical requirements necessary in the job,” said Dave Reeves, a public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Nashville.

Bakdash tried to enlist at the Army Recruiting office in Dickson, but the recruiter refused to accept his application. He then filed suit in federal court against the Army and the commander-in-chief himself, Ronald Reagan, who turned 75 Thursday.

“They are discriminating against me because of my age,” Bakdash said. “Anyone willing to volunteer for the armed forces ought to be allowed in. Today’s Army needs intelligence as well as physical abilities.”