It’s Grandads’ Army! Ex-soldiers as old as 57 urged to re-enlist
DESPERATE defence chiefs are trying to recruit a Grandad’s Army of veterans to plug manpower shortages in understrength regiments.
As part of a New Year recruitment drive, service personnel are being urged to seek out veterans as old as 57, including exsoldiers who retired on medical grounds or who left the Forces for disciplinary reasons.
An Army briefing notice seen by The Mail on Sunday says: ‘Service personnel are encouraged to contact those who have left and to pass on the information below. Rejoiners can apply to enlist up to their 57th birthday. They are also eligible for consideration to return in their previous rank and seniority.
‘Rejoiners can join their old cap badge [regiment] or apply to join a different cap badge providing there are vacancies. If a former soldier wishes to rejoin the Army within 12 months of leaving, there are opportunities for fast-track entry.’
The campaign was ordered to tackle a manpower crisis in frontline units, some of which are 40 per cent short. Soldier numbers in many historic regiments are in steep decline, with recent figures showing the Scots
Guards 257 soldiers below the target of 697, while many infantry units are more than 20 per cent under-strength.
The appeal to recruit veterans was spelled out in written orders soldiers received on their first day back after the Christmas holidays.
Ministry of Defence officials have also set up a hotline for rejoiners and are contacting veterans’ associations to encourage retired troops to pick up a rifle again. Former reservists are also being approached.
The notion of a Grandad’s Army is best encapsulated by the elderly Private Godfrey, played by Arnold Ridley in the BBC’s 1970s television sitcom Dad’s Army.
The age limit for former soldiers wanting to rejoin the regular Army and reserve units has crept up in recent years amid controversy that targeting those in their late 40s and 50s smacked of desperation. In 2014 the ceiling was raised from 43 to 52. Now it is 57, the highest ever, even for infantry units in which troops are expected to march long distances carrying heavy packs.
It comes after the Army launched its latest campaign to attract teenage recruits by persuading them that a military career gives them more confidence than social media ‘likes’. Last night an infantry soldier in his early 40s said: ‘I’m struggling to keep up with guys in the regiment who are half my age. I can’t see how guys in their late 50s are going to cope. While it is good to recognise that middle-aged people have a lot to offer the Army in specific roles, soldiering is definitely a young man’s game. It is just too physically demanding for the guys they’re looking at bringing back now.’ While the size of the Army has shrunk for nine successive years, from 102,000 to 74,440 full-time, fully trained troops, commanders are confident recruitment has turned the corner. In 2019, online applications to join the Army increased by 46 per cent, while in September 2019 more than 1,750 recruits started training – the highest number for a decade.
These successes followed the Army’s controversial ‘snowflake’ advertising campaign which focused on how the Army sees beyond stereotypes to spot young people’s potential. But the campaign was also criticised for antagonising its target audience, while the Scottish guardsman who appeared on the ‘snowflake’ poster quit the Army just days afterwards over abuse he received.
Last night, an Army spokesman said: ‘We value the diverse experience and skills that former service personnel can gain in the civilian world or from previous time in the Army, which is why we have improved our system for those wishing to rejoin.
‘Former personnel will still need to meet the required high standards, but we hope to streamline the transition through condensed basic training and dedicated advice.’