The Army’s recruitment numbers were so dire in the fall that country singer Craig Morgan turned to his friend, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and told her that he wanted to reenlist.

There was one problem: At 58, the Army veteran was only a few years away from the military’s mandatory retirement age of 62.

So Blackburn, then a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, decided to step in and help. She began working with the Defense Department and the Army, pressing them to allow Morgan to step back into uniform.

It worked.

Morgan was sworn into the Army Reserve on Saturday night in front of a crowd of concertgoers at the storied Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. He was joined on stage by Gen. Andrew Poppas, commander of Army Forces Command, Command Sgt. Maj. Todd Sims and Blackburn, R-Tenn.

“I realized that there’s so much that I’ve missed — the friends, the feeling of the sense of accomplishment,” Morgan said in a video explaining his decision. “I realized that I’ve missed it so much and I truly believe that I still have more to give.”

Read the entire Stars and Stripes story here.