Whatever Happened To ... the older army recruit

Clayton Beaver was 40 years old, unemployed and tired of dead-end, part-time jobs when he joined the U.S. Army in 2007.

His dreams of playing professional golf had fizzled, and he needed job security, benefits and stability for his new wife, Teresa, and his son from a previous marriage, Kalani, then 14. The Army was just as needy, with troops fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spread across other parts of the world. In an aggressive campaign to add soldiers, the Army had raised the age limit for new recruits from 40 to 42 and offered bonuses, amounting to $25,000 for Beaver.

In a November 2007 story for The Washington Post Magazine, reporter Michael Leahy shared Beaver's story as he left his home in Hawaii and began basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., with the looming likelihood of being shipped off to war. "Sometimes I'll ask myself, 'What the hell am I doing?'" Beaver said then. "I left a beautiful place, a beautiful family. ... I think this has been the right decision, but if it isn't, I can go back and try again."

Sure enough, Beaver was sent to Iraq with his platoon in late April 2009, more than a year after he and his family were stationed at Fort Story in Virginia Beach. But Beaver, now 43, seems to have found the career and stability he sought.

After graduating from basic training in October 2007, he spent two more months at Fort Eustis, Va., learning to unload and upload convoys for the transportation division. "They keep you fairly busy, so the only time you have to think about your family is in your bunk during downtime," he says.

His Iraq assignment also wasn't so bad. "It was definitely psychologically easier for me than for the family," he recalls. "I had all the negative and natural worries of leaving ... [but] you try not to talk about it at home and cause any unnecessary stress."

Kalani, now 17, moved to Colorado to live with his mother when Beaver was deployed but visits regularly. Teresa, now 52, stayed in Virginia Beach with her two sons from a previous marriage: Ian Ribeiro, 27, who is in the Army National Guard, and Jazziah Ewing, 29. Beaver's family talked to him at least once a week through Skype.

Now he's Sgt. Beaver, and he expects to graduate next month from school in Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where he is studying to join the Army's criminal investigation division. "I feel like a sixth-grader in a college course sometimes," Beaver says.

But overall, life is good. "We're all pretty happy," Teresa says.

Read the original story: The Last Resort