Age-old issue

As Army Chief V K Singh prepares to retire in accordance with his officially recorded birth date on May 31, he could draw comfort from the fact that he has a distinguished predecessor in the age-altering business. A new biography of Dwight Eisenhower by Jean Edward Smith reveals that the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and former US President did the same thing when he applied to the United States Naval Academy and the military academy at West Point in 1910. The naval academy required candidates to be 19 years old or less and Eisenhower would have been 20 when he joined, so he fudged his age. This was, his biographer says, common practice at a time when birth certificates were not required. As it turned out, Eisenhower gained admission to the prestigious West Point, where the age eligibility was 22, so he was able to provide his correct birth date when he joined and escape controversies over promotions in the inter-war US army, which were, like the Indian army, based on seniority. In General Singh’s case, the age dispute set an unseemly precedent. In Eisenhower’s case, the difference of one year in his age may have changed the course of history had it not been corrected.