Fresh out of high school, had no direction and no prospects. A good number of my family served in either the Army, the Navy, or the Coast Guard, all of them talked about how it would have been good for me to join the service, even as a reservist.

I spent the entire summer mulling over either joining the Navy or going Army National Guard and join my uncle's old unit, his brother in law was in charge and could pull some strings to help me out.Two weeks after I turned 18, I flipped a coin - Heads Navy; tails National Guard.

Landed on tails. Called my my uncle that night to ask a few questions about potentially being activated if I ever joined. I shit you not, he said "You'd only get activated in the case of an active hurricane season or the occasional an ice storm."

We had this conversation on a Sunday I was going to go to the local recruiting center on my next day off (the following Wednesday). Tuesday was 9/11. I didn't go to the recruiting center.

As for his old unit (which my cousin, most of his childhood friends, my future brother in law were all part of), they were deployed to Iraq twice. The second time, they lost 6 people. My cousin and my brother in law both suffered injuries that affect them to this day.