Get drafted, will travel

BLOIS, France (AFP): A 70-year-old French pensioner was unfazed when the army mistakenly sent him call-up papers telling him to present himself for national service.

Francois Beguel took the army up on its offer and got a free train ticket to a town he had always meant to see but had never bothered.

Beguel was informed in July that he was being called up for his three-day selection in Blois, southwest of Paris. He wrote back pointing out the obvious administrative mistake.

Then in October he received his call-up papers again. This time the mistake was clear: the name on the papers was Frederic instead of Francois Beguel, although the address and other details were correct.

Fed up with the missives, the 70-year-old took the army up on its offer of a free train trip to Blois, where he informed officials of the mistake and took the opportunity to look around town.

Army spokesman Michel Dupaty said the case was being investigated, but expressed some surprise that Beguel had come all the way to Blois to explain the mistake. "It could easily have been done by telephone," he said.