I could be wrong on this, but my understanding about the age on the military service record cards is that it reflects the serviceman's age at the time of enlistment or enrollment. If somebody knows that to be incorrect, please let us know and how you know it.

Readers of these cards have to be cautious, because these records are rife with errors. Bear in mind, too, that if these were copied as a WPA project in Missouri back in the 1930s and early 1940s, that compounds the problem because of reading the old handwriting and mistakes in copying.

My impression is that only the general age was important to the military, so if the poor clerk (somebody pulled out of ranks because he could read and write a little bit and wouldn't embarrass the headquarters by getting drunk a lot) got within a year or two it was okay. In my own experience in the Army some years back, I once found a company that put a concert pianist from their ranks as their company clerk because he was very literate, quiet, and gave no problems (at least until he began writing bad checks in the nearby town). I always wondered how well he played the piano.

Bruce Nichols