I enjoyed the Air Force because I really didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Not knowing what I wanted to do later in my life, the Air Force provided me with the opportunity to try a lot of different occupations that were available. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to play football at a Division 1 level.
That's when I first started thinking about the military. You know, the first time in high school. I said, maybe the military might offer an opportunity to go to college and not be a burden to my family financially. So that's where the first idea came.
Being in the navy just seemed to be the most attractive. I wanted to travel. Gosh, I was desperate to travel but didn't come from any means. So, I thought, gosh, this could be the perfect combination of a vocation, honest to goodness training, an opportunity to travel, obviously food, shelter and a paycheck and responsibility... I had up until that point no real responsibility. It just seemed like the military and the chance I was willing to take would be worth it.
It was difficult to get jobs and of course it was a new country to me, a new place. I didn't speak any English. But a friend of mine came up with the idea of joining the army and I couldn't believe that I could join the army. I went and checked it out and, in fact, yes, they accepted me.
The military was kind of always there for me to think about going into partly because of the fact that... from being from a large family I knew that if I wanted to get other things in life that the start was going to happen for me in the military, as it had happened for my father. And, now, of course I did not realize, when I was 9, 10 years old that I was gonna make a career out of the military but I knew that I could go in, I could get my education and I could go on and do other things. So, it started very early in life for me.
