why military ?

Ever since I started to finish up high school and look at colleges I have pondered the idea of joining the military. For a long while I had my heart set on the Marines, and I struggled, unbeknownst to my parents, with the idea of going straight into active duty after high school or going to college. As time progressed, I began to realize that I couldn't make life work the way I wanted to. I had to pick one path: school, or the military. I thought about joining the Army Reserves, or the National Guard. But there was always that burning desire to just drop everything at home and go for it. To leave everything behind and not look back; to forget all that existed and to just devote my life to the army and the government.


In the end I couldn't do it. I wanted to go to school too, and didn't know where to fit it in. If I went straight out of high school, I'd be going to college way later than everyone else my age. If I went after college, I'd forget everything I learned, since I would be in the armed services for 4-6 years. And even then, after being through all of that, how do you pick right back up where you left off as if nothing happened?

Not to mention this was back when Afghanistan and Iraq were just getting started. Almost ten years later, he we are still fighting the same wars. Had I gone back then, at just 18 years old, I would most likely be either overseas, or in possession of an honorable discharge by way of death. Sometimes when I think about the high possibility of death after joining, I'm scared. But a large part of me is completely unafraid. If I do pass, it will have been my time to go.

But that still doesn't answer the question of why I wanted to join. The first influential factor is probably my grandfather. Or rather, both of them, but the one that I knew and grew up with was in the Navy. His job was in the radar tower on a Destroyer, seeking out submarines and missiles before the ship was found and damaged. From what I got from it, it was almost as if the entire fate of the ship itself, at least in terms of submarine warfare, was resting on his shoulders. One mistake could be catastrophic.

Either way, I found myself inspired when attending his funeral, years before September 11th would happen, years before I graduated high school, years before I even had any semblance of a thought of what I would do with my life. But I knew after that day that I was going to be involved in the military somehow. And I wasn't going to let life pass me by without doing so.

Growing older I soon became more interested in the war movies. Granted, they are only movies. And I surely am not after fame, glamour, or anything else like that. A popular saying comes to mind, one often repeated in times of war: " Freedom isn't free. "

I don't think anything could be more true. Sure we spend a ton of money on military adventures, but the real cost is in the lives. It's in the pain that families take upon loss, it's in the worry that occurs every day wondering if your brother or sister, son or daughter, husband or wife made it another day, surviving. No one knows what it's like out there, except the people who have been there. A couple of threads I've read talk about the fact that no one who enlists wants to go overseas. But they know it will happen and are ready to take on the challenge. Everyone is scared. How could you not be?

Other than what I've already said, I can't think of anything else that has driven me to go. But it's going to happen. There is a call, and there must be a response. It's not meant for everyone, and maybe I'll find out over the course of the next few years. But you can be damn sure I'm going to try. I refuse to live my life ignoring what is going on out there to protect our country, to keep us safe. For when the time comes I will proudly wear the uniform of the stars and stripes, and despite the fear we will do what we have to do. God willing, we will succeed. Should anything happen, I will say, to those I've left behind, I am sorry, in advance. But that's simply life. It begins, and it ends. We know not when those callings will happen, and we cannot control them. But one thing can be sure -- if killed in the line of duty, I won't be going down without a fight -- a physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional fight.

I plan to enlist in either the Army National Guard or Air National Guard within the next year.