News-Info-Alerts

Re: 80 Year-Old Ex-POW Called-Up For Iraq

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: February 27, 2003

"Eighty-year-old gets Iraq call up

An 80-year-old Nottinghamshire man has been called up to fight in Iraq.

The order for Joe Steer to make himself available for combat came 61 years after he last saw action - in the battle of El Alamein, reports The Sun.

Joe said he's flattered by the call to join an attack on Saddam Hussein, but he said he was "a bit past my prime".

Joe, from Rainworth, said: "I was flabbergasted. I walk with a stick and get around on an electric buggy. I'm ready to fight for Queen and country again if the worst comes to the worst but I really wouldn't be much use in Iraq.

"It's too hi-tech today. I'm used to rifles and machine guns, not missiles."

The MoD blamed an administrative error. A spokesman said: "Ex-soldiers have a call-up liability, but only for about three years after they leave the service."

Joe was in the Royal Sussex Regiment when he was captured as the Allies crushed the Germans in Egypt in 1942. He spent the rest of the war as a Prisoner of War but stayed in the Army for 27 years until retiring."