Black Hawk Down

When I was a senior in high school, the army got my phone number.

I was an average student with a creative streak. That wasn't going to get me into many colleges, but I would've made great cannon fodder. Enter the army recruiter who would not stop calling.

The calls started at the beginning of my senior year. The recruiter was asking about my future plans, as they always do, and while I didn't know what I was doing after high school, I knew that I did not want to join the military.

But he wouldn't take no for an answer. He promised me all sorts of things. "You're interested in journalism? We have a job for that! Of course, you're first and foremost a soldier in the United States Army, but we have lots of jobs that involve writing. Have you seen Full Metal Jacket? Remember Private Joker? He was a journalist. You could be doing that."

(Just as a note to any U.S. military recruiters who might be reading — do not invoke Full Metal Jacket if you're hoping to hit your quota.)

He'd call every few weeks to check up on me, and my answers were always the same. Sorry, not interested.

Still, he kept calling. Finally I just flat told him no and hung up on him. I refused to take any more calls from recruiters. That's how I finally decided I was going to college.

The military is not for everyone, and I knew I wouldn't fit. I didn't know much else when I was 18, but I knew better than to join the army.

I bring all of this up because the Battle of Mogadishu took place in October of 1993, and 19 U.S. soldiers died in Somalia. I was a freshman in college.

If anything, the gritty realism of Black Hawk Down confirms what I suspected — there's no way I could do that job, and my hat's off to men and women who do (or did) this every day.