Why an Ex-Reporter joined the Marines

Every once in a while I come across guys at work who aren't the usual 18-year old, fresh faced kid from high school. Sometimes you'll run into an enlisted guy with a college degree, closer to 30 than 18 with some civilian life history. My buddy Ed fits this bill. He's like....45 or something and worked a desk job and made great money after college. For whatever reason he decided to leave this all behind to join the life of cleaning, being away from family, not having much say over his life and not making nearly as much money to do so. The military intrigues some people for whatever reason (jet planes, bombs, top secret this, big guns, etc.) but the reality is that like many other jobs, there' s more downtime than "go" time. Apparently this is the case even in the high speed units (as my friend, stationed at SEAL Team 10 recently told me). Which brings me to this article in the College Journal section of the WSJ. I can't exactly tell you why someone would leave an established civilian life and join the military but it does happen and happens more than you might think.