Army Has Shoes for Tired Feet of Eager Recruit

LANSING, Mich. —  A young man who set out to walk from Michigan to Washington, D.C., to prove his feet fit for Army service will be driven home from Virginia for induction now that he has received a medical waiver, a governor’s spokesman said Saturday.

Officials Friday decided to grant the waiver to allow Allen Pepke, 18, to enlist. Two earlier rejections, based on a doctor’s diagnosis of psoriasis of the feet, prompted Pepke to embark Oct. 13 on the 625-mile walk from his home in New Haven, a Detroit suburb.

Pepke had planned to arrive Monday in Washington, but he received word that he is to report that day to the Military Entrance Processing Station in Detroit, where he is to be inducted into the Army, said Richard Cole, press secretary for Gov. James Blanchard.