When Craig Morgan heard the recruitment numbers for the military were declining last fall, he decided to reenlist. He turned to his friend Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and told her he still had more to give and wanted to return to the US Army.
The only problem was that at age 58, Morgan is only a few years away from the military’s mandatory retirement at age 62.
Blackburn, then a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, decided to step in and help. She started to work with the Department of Defense and the Army, to help get Morgan reenlisted.
Her help made it possible and Morgan was sworn into the Army Reserve on Saturday night (7.29.23) in front of a crowd of at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. He was joined on stage by Gen. Andrew Poppas, commander of Army Forces Command, Command Sgt. Maj. Todd Sims and Blackburn, R-Tenn.
“I realized that there’s so much that I’ve missed — the friends, the feeling of the sense of accomplishment,” Morgan said in a video explaining his decision. “I realized that I’ve missed it so much and I truly believe that I still have more to give.”
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Morgan’s first enlistment lasted 17 years, with nearly a decade of them on active duty. He deployed to South Korea and served in the Army and Army Reserve as a staff sergeant and fire support specialist with the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. In 1989, he participated in the U.S. invasion of Panama.
“This was my first test in combat, the real crucible of a soldier,” Morgan wrote of Panama in his book, “God, Family, Country: A Memoir.” “You never know how you’re going to react when the bullets fly until you face them. I think we did well.”
Upon his reenlistment, Morgan will hold the rank of Staff Sergeant and Warrant Officer.
