http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/local/10123540.htm "Brown, 26, leaves for basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., on Thursday, cutting his annual income from $120,000 to $18,000 to serve in the Army." "... only about 5 percent of enlistees have a four-year college degree or higher."
Good for "Specialist Brown". I hope the Army life gives him what he's looking for. He'll certainly get the comraderie and teamwork that's been missing from his first profession. Nice to know he can always fall back into Law when his enlistment is done. I wish him the best of luck! Farrar
I wish more people would feel like him, and serve this country, instead of just taking advantage of its freedoms. I enlisted in the Army 9 months after I immigrated here. I didn't even do it for the citizenship, I was naturalized 10 months after ETS. There should be more civic responsibility from this society, and more patriotism towards the republic and what it stands for.
I think that is great. A lot of people are leaving good jobs to serve. I do have to comment on one case. Pat Tillman. While I think it is admirable that he decided to serve his country, why is his sacrifice more important than the sacrifice of the local police officer, engineer, ditchdigger, or student? Was his life or sacrifice worth more because he was a professional football player? Hardly. I wonder the intentions of the media at times. While he made the ultimate sacrifice, the fact he was a professional athete is not important. (I wonder how many football fields will be named after Pvt. Algernon Adams or 1st Lt. Michael R. Adams)
Mr. Engineer... I see what you are saying, but you're ignoring a piece of the puzzle. Joe dishwasher or Billy Bob mailman might be making $20,000 a year after taxes. Their jobs, by some standards, are quite unglamorous, tedious, and unfulfilling. Mr. Tillman, however, had what most mailmen and dishwashers only dream of having...a glorious career playing a children's game that made him millions of dollars a year, provided him elbow-rubbing rights with celebrities, and gave him a much wider selection of beautiful women than the average guy could hope for. His ultimate sacrifice may not have been any greater than anyone else's, but to willfully choose to give up all those worldly rewards to serve a cause he believed in is pretty impressive. I could easily give up a $20,000 boring job to find danger and adventure in a foreign land (*don't flame me on this one! War is much more than simple "danger and adventure", I know!*). But I might find it harder to give up a career like Tillman's. I'm sure he struggled with it, but the fact that he did it speaks volumes. That is why logical, level-headed, knowledgeable journalists covered his story and millions of people read it.
I, too, left a $100,000+ a year job to enlist in the Army in Jan. of 2003. I went in with a degree and as an E-4 with no designs on OCS. My MOS: combat medic. I think this is a personal choice for each individual. I am not sure I see salary as a factor as to whether or not to join and fight. You do it because you want to and you have a calling to do so. I don't praise those who enlist anymore than I admonish those who do not. A lot of people have praised me for my decision but I don't feel I deserve praise. A lot of people have criticized me for my decision but I don't feel I deserve criticism either. I think what all soldiers want is support that what we are doing is for the greater good.
