The U.S. Army is on track to hit its recruiting goal this fiscal year (which ends September 30). According to Military.com, as of April 15 the Army had enlisted 51,837 recruits, or 85% of its 61,000 target for FY 2025. (The Army also hit its recruiting goal in 2024.)
“A significant portion of that total — roughly 14,000 — comes from the service’s delayed-entry program (DEP), which is composed of recruits who signed up last year but are only now shipping out to basic training,” the site reports.
Promoting its new recruits, the U.S. Department of Defense created a two-minute video featuring 45-year-old Army veteran Wylie McGraw. As seen below, the very muscular, bearded man sits in a park in Sedona, Arizona, and introduces himself as “a prior service Army recruit” who served “in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq as a combat infantryman and a door gunner.”
McGraw explains that he’s been out of the service for over 20 years “and I’ve been spending my time going to school, living a life as a civilian, and running my own business for the last 16 years.” Now, McGraw says “I got this calling, God put it on my heart,” to serve in the military again.
After a 21-year break in service, 45-year-old Wylie McGraw is answering the call and reenlisting in the @USArmy. pic.twitter.com/hxLB4JMyEL
— Department of Defense 🇺🇸 (@DeptofDefense) June 19, 2025
After speaking to a local recruitment office, McGraw said the process of re-enlisting took 16 months. He’s set to return to basic training in August. Individual training and jump school in Georgia, will follow, and then he’ll join “the intelligence field, in a specialized military occupational specialty.”
More than one veteran replied with disbelief and questions. As Josh Alecci replied: “How? There is an age cutoff!!!” Another asked: “How? Waivers for an almost middle-aged man to rejoin? I’ve never heard of this before. I don’t understand this whatsoever.”
Based on my prior service, the military has what’s called an “age waiver”. They subtract my time in service from my biological age, so in the Army’s terms I’m considered 40. The Army’s cutoff is 41.
— 🇺🇸WMcGraw🇺🇸 (@WylieMcGraw) June 19, 2025
McGraw replied to Alecci: “Based on my prior service, the military has what’s called an ‘age waiver’. They subtract my time in service from my biological age, so in the Army’s terms I’m considered 40. The Army’s cutoff is 41.”
McGraw, who admits it will “a completely different challenge” as an older man, is challenging others like him to consider re-enlisting and “be all that you can be.”
