Russian baby gets army marching orders
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060202/od_afp/russiamilitaryoffbeat_060202175625MOSCOW (AFP) - One-year-old Dima Verenitsin cannot walk yet, but he reportedly already received his marching orders from Russia's army conscription office.
An administrative mix-up led to a demand that baby Dima, who turned one on January 9, register with Volgograd's enlistment point, a ritual usually reserved for boys of 16, the Izvestia daily said.
The infant's grandmother, Lyubov Galushkina, told Izvestia that at first she thought the military was serious. "I wanted to go to the conscription point with Dima, but there was that cold snap and he got ill."
Eventually both Galushkina and the military realised there had been a mistake, but the conscription men did not see the funny side of things.