(November 2001)

"Jesus fucking Christ. You want to join the Army? What the fuck for?"

This was the response I got the first time I went into the Army recruiting office.

Sergeant First Class Daniel Anderson [name altered] was confused because all he saw when he looked at me was what I wrote in the introduction; a rising VP at a Fortune 500 company, dressed in a $1500 suit, making more money than I could spend with a beautiful fiancée and a certain future. But he didn't know the whole story:

"I hate my life. I hate who I have become. I hate that I have nothing to show for my efforts, nothing that in my mind, defines me as a man. Honestly, I haven't done anything that makes me truly proud of myself. I'm not happy with who I am or what I do."

I went on to explain that my whole life I had ignored my two real passions, writing and the military, to follow the path I thought I was supposed to follow. My family is very wealthy and established, and since I can remember it was assumed that I would get advanced degrees and become a captain of industry and a Page 6 socialite, that I would follow my parents and grandparents and take the standard white upper-class path to success. I told him that I was tired of just checking off the boxes, of following the pre-ordained list to my life that others had handed me, and that I decided it was time to do what I wanted to do, what I loved and what made me happy.

Sgt. Anderson stared back at me as I gave him my story, listening intently and sizing me up. He reminds me very much of the character Vic Mackey from The Shield. He is the definition of a hard-boiled, crusty lifer of an Army sergeant. He had a fat wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth and a Pepsi bottle he used as a spitter on his desk. He's one of those guys that had he not joined the military right out of high school he'd probably be fixing cars or working some sort of union job somewhere, paying his taxes, bitching about the inequities of life, and struggling to make the best possible future for his kids. He does all those things now except that he's in the military, which affords him a level of dignity and self-satisfaction that he probably couldn't have found in any other job he is be qualified for. He has a take-no-shit attitude about him, but he knows the military, knows his job, and obviously takes pride in his work. He is informative and helpful, wants to do everything correctly but is willing to admit what he doesn't know. I like him almost immediately.

The wall behind him is the pictoral crib notes to his professional life. Panama, Desert Storm, Haiti, I think. Pictures of him static line jumping out of a plane, pictures of him with burned out Iraqi tanks, pictures of him with unidentifiable little brown kids in some shanty. In most of them he is much slimmer and younger looking, but there is no question about it: this man has seen the elephant. He is obviously what I have heard people in the military refer to as a BTDT [Been There, Done That]. He has a sort of self-possessed confidence that only comes from hard won experience.

I pause and think to myself that even though there is no measure of intelligence or success that he could beat me on, and that I have probably slept with more and hotter women, and I have eaten better things and read more and hung out with more important people, blah, blah, blah...all in all, I'd rather be on his side of the desk. Even though most people would look at him and look at me and say I was more successful or more like who they wanted to be, Sgt. Anderson had something that I didn't, something I valued over all that other bullshit: He had the quiet confidence and self-satisfaction of a man who he has faced true hardship...and beaten it. THAT is why I'm enlisting; because I don't have that feeling about my life.

The funny thing was that Sgt. Anderson was so confused by me that he stepped out of his recruiters role when we first met, and almost tried to talk me out of joining the Army:

Sgt. "Wait--you are a VP for [company]? Really?"
Me "Junior VP...but yeah, I am."
Sgt. "Shit, I'll trade jobs with you. How much you make?"
Me "A lot. Enough to own my own place on the Upper West Side, two blocks from the Park."
Sgt. "Goddamn. And you want to join the Army...are you shittin' me?"
Me "No sir, not at all. I'm dead serious."
Sgt. "Look, you're obviously smart, I've met my quota for this month and I don't really give a shit, so I'm going to be honest with you: The Army, ESPECIALLY the enlisted Army, is not designed for you. To be honest, it kinda sucks. You have a life that just about everyone in the Army wishes for--why the hell do you want to leave that for this shit?"
Me "Aren't you supposed to be a recruiter?"
Sgt. "Son, you are like nothing I've ever seen come in here. If this is what you want to do, of course I'll put you in the Army. But I want to make sure you know what you are doing. At the very least, you should consider going in as an officer. You seem like an officer type."
Me "Is that an insult?"
Sgt. [He just laughed and smiled at me. Obviously it was.]
Me "Well Sergeant, I would go in as an officer except as I understand it, if I go in as an officer I have to serve two years in a mainline infantry unit and become a Captain before I am eligible to try out for the Special Forces. If I go in as enlisted, I can try right after I finish Basic Training and Airborne School."
Sgt. "Yeah, that's true. It's called the 18x program. It just started a few months ago."
Me "Sergeant, my dream is not necessarily to be in the Army per se, but to make it through Special Forces selection and serve in an SF unit. That is my dream, and I want to take the quickest route there. I know Army life isn't designed for me, but I think SF life is exactly what I want. I've dreamed about this since I was a kid. Those men go through hell to keep the world safe, and I want to go with them. I want to be one of those men. I want to see if I am good enough. I want to test the mettle of my manhood on the hardest anvil there is, and SF is it."
Sgt. "The mettle of your manhood? You sound like a goddamn recruiting brochure. Did you practice this speech before you came in here?"
Me [I couldn't help but laugh] "Well sir, I have been thinking about this for awhile."
Sgt. "Huh...alright son, you obviously know what you want so let's get down to business. I'll put you in the Army...But son, if you are going enlisted, stop fucking calling me "sir." I work for a living."

We started the paperwork process that day. I decided not to tell my parents and fiancée until I had officially enlisted. This is because I wanted to hold off the drama until I was actually in the Army, and their pleas and threats would not be able to affect me.

At least not as much.

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