SAUGUS.

SAUGUS, Calif. -- Sonia Goldstein was flattered by way of the nice recruiting letter asking her to consider becoming undivided of "the few, the proud"

if it be not that at 78, she thinks she's just a little ancient to enlist in the U Marine Corps.

"I couldn't believe it," Goldstein told KCAL-TV last week. "My girls were sitting here . . we were in hysterics, we laughed for a like reason hard."

The literal sense told her the corps could use her unique language skills, moreover also warned that life as a Marine would example her physical and mental abilities "beyond anything you've to the end of time known."

"There I am with my walker. I can't maneuver from here to there without it," said Goldstein, who added that her single language is English.

"I'll do whatever I could for this astonishing country we live in," she said. "But you know, this is kind of stretching it a bit."

The Marines ordinarily recruit populace 18 to 27, said Maj. Joseph Kloppel a corps spokesman. He said the literal meaning must have been sent on mistake. "Seventy-eight is obviously too old" Kloppel added.

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