One of the first people I met at CCC was a guy named Mike. Mike is a former Marine who is going to school on the GI Bill. He had had two tours in Iraq and was done up with his service, so he decided to go to school.
A couple of weeks ago, Mike sat down at the picnic table and said to me "This schoolwork is so hard. I think I'm going to re-enlist and go to Afghanistan."
I stared and him, absolutely aghast, and said, "War is easier than college?"
Completely straight-faced, he replied: "For me it is."
That made me really sad for him. I wanted to encourage him to stick with it and for God's sake, don't re-enlist to go get blown up by an IED, but he changed the subject after I said just a couple of sentences to that effect, so I let it go.
Nobody has seen him since that day. I wonder every week if he'll turn up at the picnic table and he hasn't. The Tall Skinny Kid Whose Name I Don't Know But Who Jumps Right In to Conversations hasn't seen him either, and they were classmates. I really hope he's safe and everything.
I asked him that day what his major was, thinking that might have been the problem.
His answer? "Early Childhood Education."
See there? Your kids make soldiers want to go back to war.
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