"You got a grenade, don't you?" said Varney.
"What?" said Monivong, unable to hear above the drone of the engine.
"Never mind," said Varney. "I got one."
Salakchay Monivong, 21, a Laotian immigrant, was drawn into the service by the allure of money for college tuition.
(Steve Fainaru -- The Washington Post)
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3 Paths to Signing Up
How the three men arrived at the center of the most protracted and deadly American conflict since Vietnam opens a window on the all-volunteer army, which draws hundreds of thousands of young men and women attracted by a mixture of idealism, patriotism and opportunity.
After getting out of high school, Stewart worked at a Sumter furniture plant for $6 an hour. One afternoon in 1994, he recalled, he argued with his girlfriend, got in his car and drove aimlessly around the city until, finally, he arrived at a shopping mall.
Across the street was an Army recruiting center. In high school, when Stewart had been approached by a recruiter, he responded, "Get serious." But now, unhappy and struggling to pay his rent, he signed up on the spot.
"The rest is military history," he said. Today, he is married with four children. Ten years and several postings later, he said he still views his dangerous assignment as no more than a job.
"To me, that's all it is," he said. "I got kids to feed."
Varney grew up in Ridgecrest, a small town in the Mojave Desert. Upon graduating from high school, he worked at a golf course for the summer and snowboarded during the winter. Feeling aimless, he decided to attend a community college in Powell, Wyo., where he could snowboard and study communications. He lasted less than a semester.
"School was always pretty easy to me," said Varney, "but I spent most of my time on girls and partying."
After dropping out, he moved to Laramie to live with his sister Melissa. He had already accepted a job as a night janitor when he was watching television on his sister's couch one night and saw footage from the bombing of the USS Cole.
Varney went to talk with a recruiter. "I felt like I needed to contribute something," he said. "You go through life, taking all the time, and you don't really give back." He signed up.
Monivong immigrated to St. Angelo, Tex., with his family when he was 9. Approached by a recruiter, he was impressed by one essential fact. The Army would give him $50,000 toward his college tuition if he would sign a contract to serve four years.
He has completed three. He is about to send $5,000 to Texas to help his parents buy a house. A cartoonist who draws the company's bulldog mascot, he plans to enroll at University of Texas-Arlington to study computer science and animation. This week, Varney helped him fill out his application online.
