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still acts up.
    By the year 2000, when we were both twenty-two, Brandi and I had become desperate. With two young boys, we didn’t even have money to see the dentist. Our families were too poor to help much, but Brandi’s grandmother sometimes gave us food. We never had as much as $50 in the bank. When we were living in Wisconsin, Brandi and I started talking about the military as a way to get out of poverty. I tried to enlist in the U.S. Marines, but they turned me down because I had two children and too many debts.
    Brandi and I managed to keep going. By 2002 we were back in Oklahoma City. Brandi was looking after Zackary and Adam, and Philip—our third child—was on the way. I had a job delivering pizza and was allowed to take home as much as I wanted for dinner. We got sick of pizza awfully fast. I decided to try my luck once more with the military. This time I would try the army. Maybe their standards wouldn’t be as high. In March, I drove to the U.S. Army recruiting station in Moore, Oklahoma. At last, I found some good luck. Or so I thought.

2
    Recruitment and Training
    I HAD DRIVEN PAST IT MANY TIMES BEFORE. The U.S. armed services recruiting station was located in a strip mall in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, not far from where Interstate 240 meets Penn Street.
    I didn’t dress up to make an impression on that first day in the recruiting station. I felt better in my T-shirt and jeans. I had only ten dollars in my pocket—just enough for milk and cigarettes—and Brandi had forty dollars at home, and that just about summed up our life savings on that day. So even if I had wanted to dress up, there was no money for it.
    Outside the recruiting station someone had plastered posters promoting life in the armed forces. Every word of those posters seemed designed for people like me. I had no money, I had dreams of getting formal training as a welder, I needed to get my teeth fixed, and I wanted to have my kidney stone removed. If I only joined the military, the posters suggested, I would be on easy street. The armed forces were offering money for college tuition, health insurance, and even a cash bonus for signing up. To top it all off, military service would give me a chance to travel and discover a new way of life.
    Brandi and I didn’t like being in Oklahoma, and we wanted to get out. For folks like us who were poor and getting poorer by the day, the posters suggested that getting a job with the armed forces would be like winning the lottery. The difference, of course, was that almost nobody wins the lottery. But just about anybody can get into the armed forces—unless he or she is as poor as I was. It had been humiliating to be booted out of the marine recruiting center, two years earlier, because of my debts and growing family. This time, I would have to be honest about my situation, but I sure hoped they would take me.
    When I walked in I saw recruiters behind six desks. I walked up to a staff sergeant whose name was something along the lines of Van Houten.
    He was a tall white man, heavyset, and he looked like he was in his late twenties or early thirties.
    â€œI’m thinking of joining the army,” I said.
    Van Houten stood up and shook my hand. “What’s your name?”
    â€œJoshua Key.”
    â€œCan I call you Josh?”
    I grinned. “Everybody does.”
    â€œGood Oklahoma boy, are you? Me too. Grew up not far from here.” He did have an Oklahoma accent. He pointed to a chair. “Sit down, son, and make yourself comfortable. Hungry? Thirsty? We’ve got lots of stuff around here.”
    â€œNo thank you, I’m fine.”
    â€œWell, how about just coffee then?”
    â€œAll right, coffee would be good.”
    â€œWhat do you take in it?”
    â€œOne milk and five sugars.”
    â€œYou like a drop of caffeine with your sugar, do you?”
    I grinned again. He called for someone to get me a coffee, just the way I