Even were I inclined, I wasn't in a position to argue. The nervous kid sitting in the window seat was climbing over me to get into the aisle, frantically grabbing for his bag and accidentally placing his knee right in my crotch.

I managed to push him off my scrotum and onto the floor. I did this right as he snatched his bag from the overhead bin, and it came crashing down on my head. Judging by the weight and texture of the blow to my skull, he apparently planned on some bowling, and perhaps fixing something that required a wrench, in the next fourteen weeks.

I managed to push my way through the crowd, secure my ruck sack, and elbow my way to the front of the bus. The intervening five seconds did not see the DS's [Drill Sergeant] mood improve appreciably.

I'm sitting in my townhouse, totally alone. Nothing but me, a flickering television, a book I'm trying to read, my ruck sack packed with one change of civilian clothes, some toiletries and my enlistment papers, and that's about it.

Earlier today Sgt. Anderson told me to be back at the recruiting station at 0-dark-thirty. I didn't know what that meant, and when I inquired he looked at me like I just asked him what my penis was for, and simply said "4:30 am."

It's already midnight, but I can't sleep. It's funny; my place is totally empty, but I still watch TV in the living room and sleep on the air mattress in the bedroom. I don't know why I don't just put everything in one room. Even when everything totally changes, I still operate in the shadow of my former life.

As I sit there alone in a lawn chair, weird thoughts go through my head. I think back about a book I read in high school, Siddhartha. It's a fictional account of the early life of the Buddha, written by Herman Hesse. The Buddha was a rich and indulgent prince who left everything he had, abandoned his material success , and chose a path of extreme hardship and deprivation, which eventually led him to enlightenment. I can relate to him now, and I feel like I am kinda following that path. In high school, I hated that book. I thought it was nothing more than simplistic crap, written by a failure trying to justify his failures. Of course, I was an idiot 17 year old. It makes a lot more sense to me now.

If you read the last entry, you might be able to guess what my Christmas was like.

On the 20th, the day after I signed up and told my fiancee what I had done, she had her lawyer and some movers clear the place out. When I say clear the place out, I wasn't exagerrating. She took everything that wasn't a personal possession of mine or wasn't cemented into the place. ALL the furniture, most of the light fixtures, one of the mini-fridges, just about everything. She actually did take some personal possessions of mine; specifically, every gift she had ever given me. The bitch literally took GIFTS she had given me; dress shirts, belts, a bottle of cologne. It was crazy.

You know how a house looks when you move in the first time? Well, except for my closet, my place looked emptier than that. It looked like it had been looted.

I enlisted on a Thursday, quit my job and had my brownstone cleaned out on Friday, and immediately drank myself into a stupor that I didn't come out of until Monday morning. As in Monday, December 24th. For 72 hours I was either drunk, passed out, fucking, or some combination of the three. My friend Shawn and I must have dropped five grand between us partying, drinking, and seducing women. I wish someone had followed me around, because I think I had some nights to rival Kid Rock, but I can't really remember anything except a lot of shots, a lot of toasts, and a lot of loud music.

Joining the Army was the easiest part.

Telling the people in my life--my mother, my father, my fiancée and my friends--was the hard part.

After MEPS the recruiter dropped me off at my place. I had just enlisted in the Army. I knew I had to tell everyone, but I had no idea how to do it. I was truly baffled. In 21 days I had to fly to Ft. Benning and start Basic Training, but between then and now, I didn't know what to do.

I figured I would start with the easiest target and see how it went, so I called my best friend Shawn. He and I went to B-School together, and he knows me about as well as anyone on earth.

Shawn "What's up Nick?"
Nick "I enlisted in the Army today."
Shawn "Yeah, right."
Nick "No--I'm dead serious. I ship in three weeks."
Shawn "What? You're joking."
Nick "I'm not joking at all. I am 100% serious."
Shawn "What the fuck? Where are you? What time is it? Meet me at [a Midtown bar] right now."Over Guinness, I tried to answer his main question: Why? I laid it out for him, step by step.

It is 0515 (5:15 am), and I am waiting with several other recruits to get a ride to MEPS. There are about six of us, and we are at different stages of recruitment: some are shipping to Basic Training today, some are taking the ASVAB, and some, like me, are taking their physical and signing up for the Army. We have to all ride together in an Army van driver by a recruiter because the way security is set up at MEPS [Military Entrance Processing Station], they don't allow civilians to go in on their own.

This is the day I am supposed to sign my life over to the military, so naturally I am nervous at first, but I quickly realize that the tedious and bureaucratic nature of the process makes nervousness seem a bit out of place. When we got to MEPS I immediately understand why the phrase "Hurry up and wait," is the motto of the armed forces. There is a line for everything. We arrive and wait in line to sign in. Then we wait in line to go through security. From there we sign in again at a different desk and wait to be assigned a counselor. Then we sit in another room where we receive two folders with our names on them, and wait for the Sergeant Major to brief us...you get the point.

The first thing important thing you do is get assigned an enlistment counselor and he checks your paperwork packet to make sure everything is there and that your recruiter did the paperwork correctly. It's got all your previous addresses, names, addresses and phones numbers of just about everyone you know, your entire medical and legal history, copies of your degrees, if any, copies of your social security card, drivers license, etc, etc...again, you get the point.

Once they confirm that all your paperwork is in order, they ask you some simple medical questions and then you get sent for a full medical exam. Now, the day before I had gone to MEPS, Sgt Anderson called me at work and asked me to come down to the recruiting office so he could brief me about the medical exam. I didn't understand why I had to physically go to his office, and asked him why we couldn't just do this on the phone.

Sgt. Anderson "So how'd you like the sailor boys? You decide to wear bell bottoms and swab the poop deck?"

I can't help but laugh at Sgt. Anderson. He already knows how to push my buttons.

I tell him what the Naval recruiter told me: In the Navy, I can go straight into the SEALs, but, it'll be 2 years before I can even apply to get into Army special forces. The only reason I am going into the Army is to fulfill my life-long dream of being in the special forces, so this is obviously quite a sticking point for me. If I am going to give up my job and sell my house and leave everything I have ever worked for in my life, essentially starting over again, I am only going to do it for the Special Forces.

He admits he's not sure how long it takes before one is eligible to apply for SF, but thinks the new 18x program lets you apply right away. The other recruiters in the office are unsure also, each giving answers varying from "immediately" to "two years, at least."

Nick "What is this? You're a recruiter and you don't know this information?"

Sgt. Anderson went from happy and playful to dead serious in about 2 seconds. His eyes hardened and his jaw clenched and flexed. I think I pissed him off.

Sgt. Anderson "Let me ask you something son: Are you ready to go through with this? I can get you directly into SF, but I want you to tell me it's worth my effort. Are you serious about this?"

Sgt. Anderson is unquestionably a hard man worthy of respect, but I'm not the coddled pussy that he thinks I am. I stare right back at him and confront his gaze.

Nick "Serious as a heart attack. You get me what I want, I'll sign up right fucking now."

Sgt. Anderson "Hey man, you didn't have to go and embarrass my test like that."
Nick "Sergeant, I'm still upset that you wouldn't let me study. I think I could have gotten a perfect score."
Sgt. "Son, a 98 is good enough. 99 is the highest possible score. You get that and we're going to have to ship you off to the NSA [National Security Agency]."

Sgt. Anderson is talking to me on his cell phone from his home. I can hear his kids playing in the background. It's a Friday and like most senior NCO recruiters, he takes the day off.

I took the ASVAB on Thursday. The ASVAB is basically the military entrance exam. It's an intelligence test that measures certain cognitive abilities, and based on your score, you become eligible for certain jobs. Or if you score too low, you eliminate yourself entirely from eligibility for the armed forces.

I'm not kidding with Sergeant Anderson; I am legitimately upset that I didn't get in the 99th percentile. How the fuck do I graduate with honors from an Ivy League undergrad and go to a top 5 business school, and not get a perfect score? The test is basically just memory, math and analytical speed. For chrissake, I got in the 99th percentile on the GMAT, but only 98 on the ASVAB! The problem was that the math was mostly high school stuff and some of it I had forgotten, like factorials and the like. I tried to get the test administrator to give me my answer key, and let me see the ones I missed. When he told me that was impossible, I tried to get him to let me take the test again. He asked my score, I told him I got a 98 and he looked at me like I was retarded and told me to get out of the testing area.

"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."

Let me back up and explain a little bit.

I attended a very prestigious Ivy League college, worked for two years at a large investment bank on Wall Street, got engaged to the "right" type of woman, went to the "right" business school and got the "right" job immediately out of school. I was the poster boy for the upper-class WASP success track.

Everyone--my fiancée, my parents, my friends--they were all happy for me and reveled in my success. I was making in the mid six-figures, being groomed for upper, upper management, went to all the best parties, knew all the best people, had an expensive brownstone in New York City and an idyllic life.

I was 27 years old and had it all--yet I despised everything about my existence and every minute of my life.

I hated the boring, unrewarding, ultimately meaningless office work. I hated the fakeness of the people I worked with. I hated having to subvert myself and my identity to serve a soulless corporate god. I hated all of it.

But I most hated how I looked at myself and my degrees and my job position and my social standing and didn't see anything that I was truly proud of. I couldn't point to one thing I had done that I would be proud to tell my children about; ultimately, nothing I did meant anything. I was a meaningless and easily replaceable cog in a huge impersonal machine.

When I finally got the courage to face the fact that this was no way to live, that I wanted to make a mark on my world that I would be proud of, I walked out of my job without giving notice, broke off the engagement with my fiancée, sold everything I owned, and enlisted in the Army. My childhood dream had been to be in the special forces, and I was going to chase that dream.

I am now a 31 year-old soldier in the Special Forces of the United States Army [known by the media and non-military people as "green berets"]. I choose not to disclose my real name for PERSEC (personal security) reasons, so on this site I will go as "Nick Sadler." The US Government pays me to protect this nation and further it's interests: I oppose those who threaten the security of the state and I train and assist American allies in their furtherance of mutually compatible foreign policy and US national security. I am in the special forces, I love my job, I love my life, and I am proud of who I have become.

This is not a daily blog about my life. As a condition of joining the special forces, I signed a non-disclosure agreement and thus I am legally barred from discussing information about my job. Furthermore, I am not about to give any sort of information that could potentially be used by an enemy of the United States against me or those I serve with.

Instead, this is a memoir recalling my decision to enter the Army, my time spent in Basic Training and Airborne School, and the various other non-classified things I did before I got to the Special Forces.

The idea to put my journal on the internet came when I stumbled across Tucker Max's webpage, TuckerMax.com. One of my teammates showed me his website, and I really liked his writing. I related to his stories, and they stoked a desire in me to write, something I had loved to do before I joined the military. I sent him a few for his old Submitted Stories Page, he loved them, we started a correspondence, he offered to help me put up my own page, and this is the result of our collaboration. I write the stories while he edits them, publishes the website, and deals with all of the emails and other bullshit.

Enjoy.

"Nick Sadler"
April 2004

Entry 1: Joining The Army

Through my binoculars, I am watching an old Russian APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) ride along the twisting mountain trail 800 meters below me. I count ten men riding on or inside. They are carrying RPG's and AK-47s, and wearing the type of shemagh headdress indicative of the mujaheedan that live in the area.

We are in hostile territory somewhere close to Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Those men are probably Taliban, though possibly al-Qaeda. We have blanket clearance to engage any targets in the area. I get on the radio.

"Any available Spooky on station, this is Bravo two-zero, over?"

The radio quickly crackles back.

"Bravo two-zero this is Echo six-four, we have a Fast Mover inbound...5 mikes out, over."

Echo six-four is the AWACS [Airborne Warning and Control System--those 767 jets with a huge rotating disk radar on the top] that coordinates CAS [close air support] in the area. They are telling me that a jet, probably an F-16 or F-18, is about five miles away, headed in our direction, ready to engage the target.

"Echo six-four, we have a hot target. APC, moving south, ten Tangos confirmed. Requesting fire-mission at the following coordinates--standby--," even though I confirmed the coordinates twice before I got on the radio, I check again to make sure I am correct. Calling in 1000 pounds of high explosive ordnance that is going to land 800 meters away requires attention to detail, "Zero...Three...Three....Zero...Fife...Niner. Over?"

"Bravo two-zero, fast mover is ready. Calling the laze, over."

The AWACS is telling us to fix our specially designed infra-red laser on the APC, giving the pilot a place to target his smart bomb.

"Echo six-four, target is painted, over."

The pilot is now on the encrypted channel with me and the AWACS , and he comes on.

"Roger, Bravo two-zero, this is Alpha fife-niner. I see the paint...Bravo-two-zero, we are weapons hot, over."

"Weapons hot" means that the pilot has locked on our laser and released the bombs. The mujaheedan don't know it, but at this point they are all but dead. Even if they knew the bomb was coming, they couldn't get away from it.

I keep the laser up for as long as I can because this is a laser-guided "smart bomb" that navigates by locating the reflection of the infra-red point on the side of the APC, and heading straight for that point.

Seconds later I hear a slight low frequency whistle.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMM

The percussion of the ordnance exploding reverberates through the valley, and even though I am safe from shrapnel where I am, when the bomb explodes 30 meters above the target my head instinctually goes down.

I look up, and aside from the hole in the ground and smoldering mist, one would be hard pressed to find proof that seconds earlier an armored vehicle full of soldiers just passed by. The small bits of scrap metal wouldn't even be worth taking to a salvage yard. There isn't enough flesh left to attract carrion. After years of training and experience, you still never get totally used to that sight--the instantaneous and total annihilation of a target. Nothing where seconds earlier there was something. Ten men now only exist as memories in the minds of those who knew them.

I get on the radio. Deep existentialist thoughts aside, I need to get back to work.

"We have a direct hit, repeat, we have a direct hit. Fellas, there is nothing left, over."

The pilot responds back.

"Roger, Bravo two-zero...we are RTB [return to base]. Good luck."

My team and I stay in our location for another two hours to make sure no one makes the mistake of investigating the damage or using the same trail, then we silently exfiltrate back to our temporary camp where we'll try to get a few hours sleep before tomorrow's operations.

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