Brittanie has been asked numerous times why she wants to join the Army. So she blogged about it on myspace. I'm going to copy and paste it in its entirety. It is a calling for her:
This blog is for the the people who have contacted me recently either by myspace, yearbook, or text message asking me why...why do I want to join the military. What makes a person want to throw themselves into such a hostile environment when they have the means to make a perfectly safe and sturdy career without the military. Now, no matter what I say, you will not fully understand if you are not one of the chosen ones as well. But I am going to do my best to let you get a glimpse of why I, and others like me, do what we do.
First of all let me tell you a story I once heard told by a recruiter at an Army seminar. When the recruiter asked for any questions at the end of his presentation, a girl in the back raised her hand and asked him with a bit of a snarky attitude, "How hard is your job? I mean, I can imagine it would be hard to sleep at night knowing that you job is to try to convince young men and women to sign over there lives and volunteer to get themselves killed." I was a little taken aback when she asked this but the former Drill Sgt was not shaken at all. He politely said, "Young lady, let me tell you a story."
He proceeded to tell a story that will stick with me forever...He said that he was talking to a young lady one day who was interested in joining the Army. He met with her quite a few times, giving her information and helping her in making her decision. She was a beautiful 17 year old senior in high school with a 3.7 GPA and had everything going for her. He grew kinda fond of the girl (in a professional way). He said she was a very sweet girl and he knew she would make a good soldier. She finally decided that joining the Army was what she wanted to do with her life so she requested him to meet with her mom because although she was sure, her mom needed some convincing. Despite anything the recruiter said during the meeting the mom refused to sign the papers. She said as long as her daughter was living with her, she was not going to allow her to sign up for an early grave. That mom was so sure that if her daughter were to join the Army, she was signing her death papers. So the girl let her dream go. Over the next few months she saw her recruiter in halls of her school and she would stop to chat and say "Man I wish my mom would let me join." He would shrug his shoulders and concur with the young girl but it was out of his hands. The girl graduated and over the summer she was out with her boyfriend on the back of his motorcycle. The brakes on his bike malfunctioned and they ended up running head first into a tree. The young girl died at 17. The irony was that if her mom would have let her join the Army, she would have been at basic that day. Safe and sound.
The bottom line is, when your time is up, it's up. There is no putting it off. And frankly, I can not think of any other way I would rather die than serving my country. I can not die with any higher honor than knowing that I did what I could for my fellow Americans. Our American soldiers are not anxious to die, they are anxious to make a difference.
Now like I said in the beginning, if you have never been called, you will never fully understand. I was hand picked by God to be a soldier. Its deep in my heart and it runs through my veins. I know this is what I was born to do. Some people are called to be doctors, lawyers, and businessmen. They cannot explain why any better than I can. It's a calling. And I was lucky enough to be chosen.
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