Then he joined the army

“John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.”

For pleasure, I’ve been rereading the “Old Man’s War” series by John Scalzi which is a future set science fiction space drama.  

In the story, mankind has established many human colonies on different worlds in space, met many other alien species and found most of them to be hostile.  Thus, the Colony Defense Force (CDF) has been established with a unique recruitment policy.  What’s known to everybody on Earth is that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don’t want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living, Enlistment comes with a new enhanced body (in green only,) a “reasonable” tour of duty (2 to 10 years) and afterward a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.  You just need to survive long enough to collect it.

It’s been perhaps 10 years since I first read the first book and I remember then how I thought it was a good read but I didn’t relate to it in the same way as I did during this more recent reread.  I wonder why? ~grin~

I‘m thinking if reread again in 10 years the story experience will be even more relatable. :-o