It was truly my only motivation at the time: pay for school so mom and dad didn’t have to. I joined the Indiana National Guard 6 weeks before 9/11. It was a decision I made in about 15 minutes’ worth of contemplation and yet it was the single decision that has had the most dramatic effect on my life trajectory. So, I was a newly-minted infantryman and architecture student at Ball State on the morning of 9/11. And when I turned on the news and watched Americans die in buildings designed by architects, any motivation to do anything but protect Americans disintegrated. I dropped out of college. I transferred from the national guard to active duty (my former unit would deploy six times over the course of the next eight years without me). I became a weapon. To my surprise, the army sent me to countless schools, and I was taught Arabic. I went to intelligence school. Signal intelligence school. I learned quite a bit about cryptography and other things we can’t talk about, and then accepted a nomination to the United States Military Academy. Meanwhile, while I’m attending these schools, my friends who I had made at each stop were all getting deployed to Iraq. Most multiple times. Some came back missing parts. Some didn’t come back at all. And, as fate would have it, an injury I sustained early in my training would become so aggravated over the years that it prevented me from ever being deployed or commissioned. And, as such, without ever spending a day outside of school--let alone the country--I was discharged. Brutal.So what was the point? I spent five years of my life training to know enemies and to kill them, only to watch my friends "go to work" in my place and die, become seriously injured, or otherwise forever altered, destroying their families’ lives in the process. It hurts--and it took a real damn long time before I could admit that I was grateful for how that worked out.The morals of the story:1) the price of your freedom is beyond your comprehension. Thank a Veteran every single day. 2) There are countless ways to leave your legacy and to be of service to others. Find a way to live and give unconditionally.