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Tap Is Dry For Troops Under 21

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The Associated Press

Published: May 30, 2008

FORT BLISS, Texas - This military base in the far West Texas desert stood as the last Army post in America where if you were old enough to fight and die for your country, you were old enough to drink a beer.

But the party is over at Fort Bliss.

Citing too many drunken-driving crashes and arrests, and too many fights, the new commanding general has raised the drinking age on base from 18 to 21, bringing 17,000-soldier Fort Bliss into line with what has been the law in the rest of Texas since 1986.

Not only that, but all Fort Bliss soldiers are barred from slipping across the Mexican border to Ciudad Juarez, a city of famously loose morals where young Americans have been getting drunk - and getting into trouble - for generations. From now on, no passes to Juarez will be issued.

The new policy took effect May 22.

Pfc. Walter Iverson, a baby-faced 19-year-old, said he will miss grabbing a beer after work: "It's like my parents say, I'm old enough to join the Army, but I'm not old enough to drink."

Other Army bases across the country raised their drinking age to 21 during the past 20 years or so. Many states went to 21 under federal pressure beginning in the mid-1980s, and 21 is now the law in all 50 states.

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