The Last Resort

WHILE 40-YEAR-OLD AMERICAN PRIVATES FOUGHT IN WARS INTO THE 20TH CENTURY, the Army had excluded them in recent decades. By the 1970s, when the military draft ended, U.S. law required that no new active-duty recruit in its all-volunteer force could be older than 35, and there the age ceiling stayed for three decades, until Congress, with Iraq in conflagration, gave permission to all military branches to raise their maximum ages for recruits to 42. Only the Army took advantage of the opportunity.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

In recent years, as a consequence of its military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has often struggled -- and, in 2005, failed altogether -- to meet an annual recruitment goal that has climbed from 63,000 in 1995 to 80,000 today. Military officials acknowledge an increasing difficulty with attracting young Americans. Army studies reveal that, as the war and American casualties have persisted in Iraq, a growing number of what the Army calls adult "influencers" -- parents, teachers and other role models -- have been less inclined to support military careers for young people under their wings.

Welcoming the older recruits is part of a three-legged strategy that has involved relaxing Army standards to admit greater numbers of enlistees typically regarded as the military's last resorts -- including those with criminal backgrounds (misdemeanor and nonviolent felony convictions) and some deemed "Category 4s" -- those whose scores on Army aptitude tests fall in the bottom 30th percentile. The number of "moral waivers" granted to recruits with criminal records has more than doubled since fiscal 2003, with slightly more than 11 percent of all recruits in fiscal 2007, or more than 8,000 soldiers, requiring the waivers, Army officials say.

In fiscal 2007, the first full year of recruiting for both the active Army and the reserve under the new age ceiling, the Army signed only 240 recruits in the 40-to-42-year-old bracket for the active Army and 138 for the reserve. "We never expected huge numbers . . . and this wasn't ever about putting a lot more boots on the ground," says Maj. Gen. Thomas Bostick, head of the Army recruiting command. "We wanted to give a chance to people [in their early 40s] who wanted to serve and who'd missed a chance to serve earlier. A lot of them love their country and want to defend it."

So successful was the quick-ship program, with its $20,000 bonus, that August marked the Army's best recruiting month in fiscal 2007, an Army spokesman says. "But all these changes raise questions about what you're getting with these new people, including older soldiers," says Cindy Williams, a security studies professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a defense analyst. "It's quantity versus quality tradeoffs. Service in the Army can be a lot to ask of some 40-year-olds -- some of them just don't have the same physical wherewithal of a 20-year-old. Physical stamina counts for a lot in some of the kind of duties and engagements they're coming up against."

According to Bostick, last year, 60 out of 524 active recruits in the 35-plus age group failed to graduate from basic training, an 11.4 percent rate that is about 75 percent higher than the Army's overall attrition in training. The failure rate of older soldiers in training would be higher if the Army hadn't lowered physical performance standards for the 40-plus group. To graduate from basic training, Beaver will need, among other things, to run two miles within 19 minutes and 30 seconds, a mark that is two minutes slower than that required of soldiers in their early 20s.

Even with that extra time, Beaver worries about his ability to meet the running requirement. "I tried running for 20 minutes or so the other day, and, in five minutes, I felt like I was about to have a heart attack," he says. "Halfway, I was dry-heaving; it was bad."

But he has deeper worries about what might be coming after basic training, particularly deployment to the Middle East. "I'm scared sometimes. I admit it," he blurts one afternoon. "Nobody wants to die."

DARKNESS IS DESCENDING. Beaver, Teresa and Kalani are driving to a Waianae High School football game. As they get close to the school, Beaver says, "The football field sits less than a hundred yards off the ocean. Just beautiful. You don't think how beautiful, till you're getting ready to leave."

He parks the truck and, flanked by Teresa and Kalani, strolls onto a running track encircling the lit field. A few old acquaintances approach to shake his hand. They've heard the news. One man mumbles: "So you're going? The Army?"

"Yeah, I'm going," Beaver says. The other men's gazes shift up from the ground to study him. There is a pause in which no one around him says a thing. Beaver nods. "Leaving Monday."

"For real, brah?"

"For real."

One by one, the men slap Beaver's back in a comradely way, wish him luck, tell him to stay safe.

Oblivious to the game going on behind him, Beaver pauses in front of the booths that ring the track. The Army National Guard has a stand, with recruiters handing out information to students and adults about the benefits of joining up. Kalani points excitedly at a Humvee that is festooned with the words "Hawaii Army National Guard."

A recruiter, seeing the boy ogle the Humvee, sidles over, gives Kalani a pat on the back and hands him a complimentary National Guard football. "That's yours if you'd like it."

"Thanks," Kalani mutters, and twirls the football in his hand.

"High school?"

"I'm a freshman."

"You look strong," the recruiter says. "You in pretty good shape?" He smiles and cuffs Kalani around the shoulders. "Good shape?"

Kalani smiles shyly. "I don't know."

"You look like you are. Whadda ya say you do a few pushups for me? Come on, drop and give me a few; let's see what you can do." The recruiter points at an older high school kid. " You. You want to try it, too? Here, you want a Frisbee? Come on, guys. Drop and show me what you got."

A grinning Kalani gets on the ground with the other kid and starts doing pushups. Kalani does 13 before the recruiter laughs and says he can stop. "I might want you to talk to me someday."

Kalani stands, spins his football. "Yeah, when I get older, I don't know, I might want to try the Army someday," he says.

Beaver has walked a ways down the track toward another military man. He greets Sgt. Derwin Villanueva, one of his own recruiters. Villanueva smiles and sticks out a hand. Simultaneously, Teresa gives Villanueva a hug.

A Hawaii native, Villanueva forged a connection with the couple early in the recruiting process. "So, you doing your running?" Villanueva asks Beaver.

"I missed today," Beaver admits, smiling. "I had a lot of things to do. But I ate a salad at lunch."

"So, you ready?" Villanueva asks.

Beaver nods. He wants to say something more, but another group of people shouts his way.

Villanueva watches him shaking hands. "I've never had a 40-year-old recruit before," he says. "He asked a lot of questions about how it would be for his family -- that's pretty typical for older recruits. He scored well, above average, on his [aptitude] test. He's a good communicator; he relates easily to people. The biggest challenges for him in [basic] training will be the physical ones. Age-wise, he'll be at a disadvantage with pushups and the run, those sorts of things. But his age should help him sometimes there. He's had to deal with stressful situations in his life and cope in ways that 18- and 19-year-olds haven't had to cope."

Beaver turns back his way. "Everybody wanting time with you," Villaneuva needles his recruit.

"Brah, they just want to say goodbye to the old man."

Later, after dropping off Kalani at home and having a quick bite to eat, he and Teresa are back on the road, driving east along the beach highway in the dark. They say little. He finally mumbles, "Three days away."

She looks out the window.

"It's not gonna happen here for us," he says. "It's somewhere else. I don't know where, but it's gotta be out there somewhere."

THIS IS HIS "SECOND LIFE," AS BEAVER CALLS IT. In his "first life," he dreamt of building a comfortable career playing professional golf. Encouraged by his father, who was at different times a high school administrator and football coach in Hawaii, Beaver walked three miles as a boy after school to practice on a local course, where coaches lauded his game.

As a high school player, he won statewide youth tournaments and often shot in the low 70s on courses where professionals struggled. He gained admission to Brigham Young University and played on its golf team, but after only a year, homesick and worried about money, he transferred to a Hawaii branch of BYU and returned home. The readjustment to Oahu came with a price: In short order, he found it tough to attend class or study amid the familiar attractions of home -- the beaches, his friends, parties and old haunts. He admits, "When I got back, there was just too much aloha," a word that, while a mere greeting and warm parting for tourists, also means camaraderie to locals. "Too much fun," he recalls.

In the early '90s, he dropped out with about $20,000 in educational debts, took a job as an assistant pro at an Oahu golf course and played minor league golf in events on the Aloha PGA circuit, where he won a pittance here and there.

Kalani was born when Beaver and his first wife were living in Las Vegas, where Beaver worked at a country club. He spent much of his free time looking after his son. He so adored the child that he got tattoos of Kalani's name on both shoulders. "I'd just sit around with him for hours, playing with him and changing his diapers," he remembers. "That's good for being a father, but it's bad for being a golfer. Success is all about sacrifice. I never sacrificed enough for golf. I have guilt about that. I don't want any more regrets."

Before long, his boss told him the club was being sold; Beaver was out of a job. He returned home to take another assistant pro position. By then, his marriage was suffering -- there were personality differences and tensions unrelated to money, he says. The couple divorced in 2003. Beaver moved back into his boyhood home with his mother. Kalani was shuttled between Beaver and his ex. "The divorce was a huge blow to my self-esteem," Beaver says. "I felt like a failure. It leaked over to my work at the country club. I wasn't doing well with much of anything. Everybody agreed that I'd probably be better off working somewhere else, so that was it. My marriage was finished, and golf was finished. I was at the bottom."

He had time to fill for a while. He took some online courses from American Inter-Continental University and picked up enough credits to get an associate's degree in business administration. He accepted work wherever he could find it.

Teresa, whom he'd met around the time of his divorce, tried buoying his spirits. Last spring, she suggested they look at a modest house with a corrugated steel roof, only to learn the asking price was about $400,000. "Made our hearts sink," she says. "We realized we couldn't afford anything. That hit us hard. We realized we needed to come up with a new plan. We were getting bad news everywhere."

Beaver's last job began in February. He worked on a construction crew and, though plagued by a fear of heights, accepted an assignment that required him to ride each day to the top of a tall crane in an elevated basket, step outside the basket and apply oil to the crane while suspended in the air and attached to the crane by only a harness. Another harnessed man doing the same job for a different crew fell to his death last spring. But the job paid well, about $30 an hour, and Beaver was receiving health benefits, all of which he lost in May, when the job ended.

It was the same month he turned 40. "I felt like I was running out of time," he says. He had begun accompanying his grandson's mother, 18-year-old Genesis Miner, when she went to visit Army recruiters, to whom she had been talking about enlisting in the reserve. As he stepped through the recruiting door for the first time, he looked like nothing more than her escort. But Beaver, unknown even to his family members, was by then pondering his own enlistment. After Miner signed up, Beaver continued visiting with recruiters, thinking of going a step beyond the reserve and becoming a full-time soldier. "It's all a life change for a 40-year-old guy, obviously," Sgt. Villaneuva says. "He was very careful. We took it slowly."

One evening in July, Beaver went home to talk about the possibility with Teresa. At first glance, life as a soldier did not appear very attractive: The salary sounded so meager. But the Army boasts that, at the rank of sergeant, a soldier's total compensation package, including health and educational benefits, commonly exceeds that of a new police officer. Among other things, signing up as an active recruit would mean a larger enlistment bonus for Beaver -- $25,000 (the sum of his quick-ship bonus and an additional $5,000 bonus for becoming a cargo specialist), compared with about $10,000 for the reserve. It would mean, too, that the Army would agree to pay

off his educational debt. Finally, recruiters told Beaver, active would mean a shot at a long and stable career and a pension. If he wanted to finish his undergraduate education while serving in the Army under an initial three-year contract, he would be able to take about $4,500 worth of classes annually, at Army expense.

A few days later, Beaver arrived at his decision. By then, he and Teresa had decided to marry. "It wasn't so much because he [was] going away," she says. "We were always going to do this someday, anyway. But I did think I wanted to let him know that I was going to be here when he got back -- or that I was going to be there for him wherever he had to go."

THE BEAVER FAMILY HAS A DOG WITH EXOTIC BLUE-AND-SILVER FUR whose lone trick is being able to catch in his mouth a tennis ball fired full speed from no more than 30 feet away, a feat that is Stupid Pet Tricks-worthy. "Watch this," Beaver says, burning a fastball and exulting as the dog dutifully snatches the ball out of the air as calmly as a baseball catcher.

A blue heeler, the dog is aptly named Blue, and Blue's weird skill is almost always good for a raucous laugh from everyone around, especially Kalani. But not today. It is raining, and the teenager is hardly talking on what will be Beaver's last Saturday in Hawaii for a long time. Instead, the boy is riding around on his waveboard in the driveway. Beaver calls out, "Somebody old could break their neck if they jumped on that thing, right, brah?"

Kalani just keeps cruising around in circles, getting drenched.

"Kalani says I'm not allowed to try it because there is a weight limit on the waveboard of 220 pounds, right, Kalani? Here I am, like, 240, and Kalani told me I'm so heavy I might break the board." Beaver laughs, shouts out to his son in singsong. "Ouch, that stung, brah."

The boy goes around and around.

Beaver is cooking steaks on the grill, a feast for a few friends due to arrive soon. Inside, his mother is holding baby Jassiah. Divorced from Beaver's father and remarried, Betty Ann Carrancho is trying her best to keep what she is thinking to herself. "When he first told me he was doing the Army, I couldn't believe it was happening," she says. "I wanted to upchuck. I know he sees this as a good opportunity. I understand why he's doing it, and I'm proud of him for wanting to do the best for his family. But, at my age, I have more fear of things, I guess." She smiles wanly. "He's a grown man who makes his own decisions, but I can't help myself. It's like he's 18 again. He's my baby."

Teresa walks through the room and, recognizing her mother-in-law's stricken expression, reaches for Jassiah. "Oh, I'll take him, Mom," she says. She has tried her best to play the role of morale booster for her mother-in-law during these last couple of weeks. But Teresa has her own concerns. "I guess I worry about my husband killing somebody and what impact something like that could have on him," she says. "Emotional problems, things like post-traumatic [stress] disorder: that would be hard. I want the same Clayton. He's really squishy." She means soft and gentle. "But you'd have to be different if you've killed people or seen people killed. How could you not be?"

Teresa's father, Manny Ribeiro, shows up at the house along with a few other guests. Ribeiro, a former military man himself, jerks a thumb at Beaver, smiles and says of his son-in-law, "A lot of people think he's nuts for doing this."

Beaver laughs.

A few of the guests hesitantly ask Beaver about his reasons for joining the Army. From the start of his courting process with the military, he told recruiters he wouldn't take a particular occupation just because it might mean pocketing a few thousand dollars more in bonuses. "Infantry is infantry," he tells his friends. "It's not like I was trying to avoid all the risk and the front lines, but I didn't want that . . . I almost signed up to be an MP -- you know, do the military police route. But then one of the recruiters brought to my attention that the MPs are some of the first ones being deployed to Iraq . . . Cargo specialist and crane operating sounded really good after that."

His father-in-law smiles. "Learning a skill."

Beaver nods. "Yeah. And getting home."

"We're all proud of you," says Ribeiro.

The rain has stopped. In the driveway, away from everyone else, Kalani is shooting a basketball at a hoop hung on the garage. "We've never been away from each other for long," he says of his father. "It'll be a little weird for me because he's taught me almost everything, like how to play baseball. Maybe it'll be kind of hard not to hear from him. That will be strange."

He glances at his father, to whom he gives space for the rest of this afternoon to hang out with his guests and join them in singing Hawaiian songs accompanied by guitars and a ukulele. But by the next day, their last full one together in Hawaii, Kalani has reclaimed his dad. The two join Teresa, her father and a few friends on a golf outing. Between shots, Kalani rides alone with his dad in a golf cart, and now and then, impulsively, his dad leans over and kisses Kalani on the top of his head, or drapes a thick arm around him. Beaver, showing his old form, hits one laserlike chip shot after another within a couple of feet of several pins.

On the last hole, Kalani's nerves fray. The boy badly shanks a couple of shots and knifes his club into the ground. "You gotta follow through, and you gotta keep your composure," Beaver tells Kalani, who momentarily looks furious at both the ball and his father. Beaver frowns. "Hey, I'm just trying to help, brah. You're pissed off right now, huh? Come on. Let's go." The boy storms up to the green, where Beaver puts an arm around him and pulls him tight against his chest. "It's all right."

They have lunch in the golf course's restaurant, after which Beaver says goodbye to his friends, promising to keep in touch, and drives home with Teresa and Kalani. Walking up the driveway, he finds an expectant Blue sitting there, with a tennis ball between his teeth.

THE NEXT MORNING, BEAVER ARRIVES AT THE ENTRANCE PROCESSING STATION AT PEARL HARBOR. There are three Marine and seven Army recruits, including Beaver. Nearly all are in their teens or early 20s, and some are handling the moment better than others. One young man has his head buried in his arms, crying softly, shoulders heaving.

Beaver is alternately chipper and quiet. At 10 a.m., he is led into a room for his official swearing-in, along with three young recruits. The three already have assumed a military bearing -- chins up and shoulders straightened, with their hands knotted behind their backs in a parade-rest position. Beaver takes a look at them and smiles. "You guys look so serious," he says. "And limber. I can't even get my hands behind my back."

They laugh.

Someone in a uniform walks in and calls out: "Attention on deck." An officer enters to conduct the swearing-in.

Within the next minute, Beaver takes the oath and is officially Pfc. Beaver. He steps into another room, signs his three-year Army contract, reviews his travel itinerary and then sits quietly with Teresa in a waiting area. At about noon, Villanueva and another recruiter, Sgt. Steve Thomas, pay him a farewell visit.

Villanueva shakes Beaver's hand. "Our last face-to-face with you. Thanks for serving, brah."

Beaver nods. "Off to Fort Jackson."

Thomas pats Beaver on the arm: "Do well. Make us proud." He leans toward the recruit. "If you ever feel like quitting, don't. Especially the first two weeks of training; it can be hard. Find your why. Remember why you're doing this. Some people think of quitting early --"

"I won't," Beaver says firmly. But, at that moment, he will acknowledge later, he is wondering why he is doing this.

Soon, Beaver and the other recruits board a bus that takes them to Honolulu International Airport. There, they try to relax while waiting for their flights. Within a few minutes, Teresa arrives with Kalani, Jassiah, Betty Ann Carrancho and Beaver's oldest brother, Alfred Beaver.

A handyman who formerly served in the Navy, Alfred tells him: "They'll call you Grandpa. Don't worry about it. Just pay attention to all the details they're giving you. How much they give you in bonus money?"

"Twenty-five thousand."

" Twenty-five thousand?" Alfred is incredulous. "Wow. I could still get in and do it."

"No, no, no, no," gasps their mother.

Alfred smiles and shakes his head. "I'm too old -- I'm joking. Besides, the war situation -- you maybe couldn't get me to go in."

There is silence for a moment, before Beaver says, "I don't want to live at home the rest of my life."

The brothers hug, wish each other well, and Alfred takes off.

Kalani pipes up. "How much time do we have?"

"Only a half-hour," Teresa says. "No. Less."

Kalani walks off to play a video game. Teresa sits with Beaver, the two holding hands. Beaver uses his free hand to wipe at his eyes.

"It's time," Beaver says. "I've gotta start heading to the gate."

He walks over to Kalani, who is chomping hard on gum and staring at the video game screen. "Son, you almost done there?"

With Carrancho leading the way, they start walking toward the security lines. Beaver stops halfway. "Okay, hold on here," he says. He tells his mom he loves her, gives her a hug, kisses Jassiah on the cheek and then walks a little farther alone with Teresa and Kalani.

"How you doin'?" Beaver asks his son.

The boy is chewing his gum so hard that his jaw muscles twitch.

Beaver turns and puts a hand on Kalani's shoulder. "You make every moment count. Make the right choices. Remember everything I've ever taught you." The boy is stoic, and his father kisses him on top of the head and on his lips. "Hey," he mumbles in a strangled-sounding voice and, lunging at his son and wife, clutches the two of them simultaneously. Kalani buries his face in his father's chest. A good distance away, Beaver's mother bows her head, unable to watch any longer.

FIVE WEEKS LATER AND 25 POUNDS LIGHTER, Beaver stands at rigid attention with other recruits at Fort Jackson. A drill sergeant pins medals on the seven soldiers among the 54 in Beaver's platoon who have won sharpshooter awards for above-average shooting proficiency with their M-16 rifles. Beaver -- who, other than hunting a few times as a child, had never handled guns before his training here -- is one of the sharpshooters; he hit a distant target on 30 of 40 shots.

"Congratulations, Beaver," drill Sgt. David Snyder says to him, shaking his hand. About midway through the nine weeks of basic training, Snyder says, "Private Beaver is squared away," which is Army talk for attentive, determined, skilled, worthy of respect and capable of leading. Snyder has given Beaver one of two leadership positions in the platoon, designating him as the 1st Platoon's assistant platoon guide, or the APG. Beaver helps Snyder with everything from maintaining platoon discipline to resolving personality conflicts among his fellow recruits. If Snyder needs someone to monitor calisthenics, Beaver -- whose 70 pushups during a two-minute test placed him above the 90th percentile of recruits in his age group -- can do that, too.

At 32, Snyder has dealt with recruits younger and older than himself, and he prefers the latter. "By the second week of training, I saw that he was going to have leadership stripes and be the APG," Snyder says. "He talked to other soldiers. He was helpful to them. He openly expressed his opinions about things they were doing. He led in his own kind of quiet way . . . He's getting fitter -- you can see that. The run is a challenge for him, but he's going hard." (In the days ahead, Beaver will pass his running test.) "He won't allow age to hold him back," Snyder adds. "The younger soldiers see that. Some of those guys, even the faster ones, quit if they feel pain. Beaver just keeps pushing."

He looks out at Beaver, who stands in a distant field with the other members of his platoon, all of whom are receiving additional simulated training on their M-16s. "You can see Beaver always concentrating out there," Snyder whispers. "You get the feeling he knows that if you pay attention, you have a better chance of staying safe. Maybe that's age. Maybe he appreciates more what is at stake . . . Some of the kids in the platoon have had everything handed to them growing up. And they're thinking about college money they might be getting from this, or how they might be using their bonus to buy a new car. Their minds aren't always in this, you know? And you get the feeling a lot of them don't respect authority. It's like they think that 'the authority' has kept them down all their lives. I'd say 20 percent of them have an attitude. It's a problem. I'm lucky to have Beaver."

The other leaders of Delta Company, and several of his fellow recruits, are similarly convinced that Beaver has a long and bright future ahead of him in the Army. Unbeknown to them, Beaver himself is far less confident.

During a short break in the middle of the afternoon, he says: "Sometimes I'll ask myself, 'What the hell am I doing?' I left a beautiful place, a beautiful family . . . I think this has been the right decision, but if it isn't, I can go back and try again, I tell myself."

On this October afternoon, he and his platoon mates plop down on the floor in their barracks to clean their M-16s. A few soldiers fiddle with their disassembled guns, as if momentarily puzzled about what parts go where. Beaver handles the job as nonchalantly as if he were tying his shoes.

He jerks his head up. "Attention!" he commands when an officer enters the barracks. The other recruits dutifully set their weapons down and stare at the officer.

"At ease," the sergeant says. "All those weapons cleaned yet?"

"No, drill sergeant," Beaver answers on behalf of the platoon.

Cleaning resumes.

Training life revolves around rituals and rhythms, and Beaver has mastered them. His ease in training allows his mind to drift -- not always a good thing, he says.

"I was thinking about home on the march over today," he says. "Kalani is not doing so good since I left." He looks over his shoulder, tells a recruit to please pipe down.

"Kalani's not playing baseball. I can't believe it," he says. "The only thing I can figure is that I'm not there." His voice catches. He clears his throat. "It's just hard. It's real hard."

Another officer enters. "Attention!" Beaver calls out.

The drill sergeant barks for a soldier. "Navarro?" There is a pause during which no one answers. The drill sergeant yells again: "Navarro? Where's Navarro? I need Navarro. Navarro?"

"What?" a pipey voice calls out.

"Oooooooooooh," the entire platoon groans.

The appropriate answer under such circumstances is, "Here, drill sergeant," a response to be delivered, in this case, while moving in double time toward the superior.

"Navarro!" shouts the sergeant.

The chastened private is finally moving, though not fast enough for the sergeant -- who has ordered him to do 20 pushups in addition to whatever else he's been summoned for -- or for Beaver, who must see to it that the sergeant's orders are promptly obeyed. Beaver raises his voice: "Come on, Navarro. Run, run, run. Come on, Navarro. Run. And do those 20 pushups."

Beaver retrains his attention on his gun. "There're so many kids here," he says. "Some call me 'Uncle' or 'Grandpa.' Some of the kids whine a lot. Sometimes you just want to say, 'Suck it up.' But you realize they're so young. It's not like talking to somebody my age . . . They'll come to me and say stuff like, 'My girlfriend isn't writing me -- what should I do?' Or, 'I got an itch right here -- what's that about?'" Beaver rolls his eyes.

Looking at the kids in his platoon has convinced him of one thing. "I don't want my son to go through this," he says. "I'll tell Kalani: 'You're going to school. You're not going into the military.' I hope he won't need to."

He has tentative plans for Kalani and Teresa to fly out and attend his November graduation, after Teresa sees her son graduate from National Guard training in Georgia. He hopes they can ride with him to the next phase of his training, at Fort Eustis, in Newport News, Va. "Then we find out where I'll be stationed, I guess." A young soldier calls out to him, in need of advice. He bends to whisper to Beaver.

Other young men sidle up for a quick word every few minutes. Kids carrying secrets and worries -- like all kids, he thinks. "It feels like I have Kalani and a bunch of other kids now," he says. "When you got kids anywhere, you got issues. It never stops."

"IT'S A GREAT DAY FOR KILLIN' TERRORISTS," Sgt. Snyder greets his charges the next day. "Good mornin' . . . Attention!" The platoon snaps to attention.

"Are you motivated?" Snyder asks his platoon and others.

"Motivated, motivated, downright motivated!" they howl in unison.

Snyder gestures at an obstacle called the Berlin Wall and at a couple of other walls, each of which looks about three stories high. "How many of you are scared of heights?" he asks.

About 20 percent of his platoon, including Beaver, raises their hands.

"Well, it sucks to be you," Snyder says. "Now, before we all do this, here's another thing you need to know. You can tell by all the indentations on these walls that many soldiers have lost control of themselves up there and lost some of their chiclets."

This generates nervous laughter. Chiclets are teeth.

"So be careful up there. Hand over hand on the ropes. Use your feet and hands. Don't panic. Again, let me see how many of you are scared of heights?"

Beaver's and the other hands go back up.

Another private standing next to Beaver tells him to put his hand down. "You don't want people to know you're scared, man."

Being scared, Beaver remembers, never stopped him from being suspended in the air and oiling that crane back home. "I can control my fear," he says to his fellow recruit. "Besides, why not let the scared ones know they're not alone?"

He spends the rest of the morning and early afternoon scaling the walls and, along the way, scurrying up barriers to help struggling comrades. To others, he shouts encouragement. "You gotta represent!" he shouts to C.J. Cannon, a platoon mate who is 41. "Old men gotta represent!"

Although Beaver won a platoon leadership position, Cannon is off to bigger things after basic training. Officer Candidate School awaits him, as Cannon already has a bachelor's degree. Having heard about Cannon's good fortune, Beaver has vowed to finish up his college credits so that he might quickly ascend from private and have a shot at becoming an officer. He howls at his fellow 40-something and exchanges back slaps with him when his feet hit the ground.

"Good that there're two of us doing this," Cannon says.

"The graybeards," Beaver chortles. The sweat pours off the two of them.

The walls finally give way to an obstacle that requires the soldiers to crawl along sand beneath barbed wire. Beaver is among the last to try it, and the others in the platoon wait at the end to cheer him on. They imitate his singsong.

"Wat you say, brah? There's a coconut tree for you if you can get here, brah."

"Come on, Grandpa."

"Brah, you can do it. This is beach. Waikiki and all that. Your thing, brah."

"Let's go, Beav'."

He is scurrying on his belly, and it is the feel of the cool sand in his hands that returns him, he will say later, to Teresa and Kalani, to the life left behind. To the mother who took him in after his divorce. To the Oahu beaches. To the aloha that was both reason for joy and the cause of his struggles. "Come on, Beav'!" his mates are screaming, already jogging on. He slithers under the last wire and, with a shout, scrambles to his feet and half-stumbles over a bump, pumping his arms and running to catch up.

Michael Leahy is a staff writer for the Magazine. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article Monday at noon. He can be reached at leahym@washpost.com