GI Rejoins After 38-Year Service Break

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GI Rejoins After 38-Year Service Break
January 05, 2009
Army News Service|by Sgt. Whitney Houston

BAGHDAD - Young men and women frequently follow the footsteps of their parents and grandparents by joining the military. Army Maj. (Dr.) Robert Sexton reversed that role when he followed his two sons into the military after a 38-year-break from his previous service.

Sexton was an unlikely candidate when he was commissioned in November 2007 in his mid-50s and assigned to serve as a physician with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 425th Civil Affairs Battalion, attached to the 4th Infantry Division here.

Sexton enlisted in the Army at 17 and left his native Cleveland in 1968 for Vietnam, where he would spend the next two years attached to the 101st Airborne Division, working with Korean troops on Army boats that provided transport, insertion and evacuation.

Sexton was honorably discharged at 20 and returned home only to become disillusioned with the social upheaval happening in the United States. He and his wife decided to move to her native country of Guatemala.

Sexton worked multiple jobs to support his family in Central America, but eventually decided to realize his desires and go to medical school in Guatemala.


Rest of article at: http://www.military.com/news/article/army-news/gi-rejoins-after-38year-service-break.html?col=1186032369115