Quite true. My nephew joined the army after flunking out of college. His boot camp graduation class was very sad. You could tell that all of the men and women who were there did so because they truly felt that they had nowhere else to turn. They were from small towns where the one plant where everyone worked had just closed down, etc. I was thinking that most of the class would be his age (19 or 20 at the time), but I was shocked to see how many (mostly the men) were in their 30's with wife, kids, etc.