True Patriotism

Lawyer takes salary cut to follow lifelong dream!!!!!

Despite dangers, attorney joins the Army to fight for his country By JAMIE STENGLE Associated Press

DALLAS - A chance meeting in a Subway restaurant with an Army recruiter changed the life of Michael Brown, a Dallas lawyer.

Brown, 26, leaves for basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., on Thursday, cutting his annual income from $120,000 to $18,000 to serve in the Army.

The impetus was a conversation with Staff Sgt. Jerome Huntley in mid-July.

"I had been thinking about doing it," Brown said. "It's on your heart and you're thinking about doing it, and there he is."

They talked in the restaurant, and the next day Huntley came to Brown's apartment to describe life in an Army special operations unit, such as the Rangers or Green Berets.

Huntley said Brown's enthusiasm eliminated any doubts about someone giving up a career as a lawyer.

"He was just saying he wanted something more exciting in his life," Huntley said.

Basic training

After 16 weeks of basic and advanced individual training as an infantryman at Fort Benning, he'll go to Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He hopes to then join a special operations unit.

A recruit like Brown is "relatively unusual" not only because of his profession, but also because of his income and age, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox in Kentucky.

About 98.5 percent of Army officers have a bachelor's degree, and 40 percent of those have a master's or a doctorate, according to the Army. But only about 5 percent of enlistees have a four-year college degree or higher.

Smith said the average recruit's age is 21, and according to 2002 data, only 7 percent of enlistees come from households with incomes of $100,000 to $150,0000.

Choosing a career

Brown grew up in Starkville, Miss., and played outside linebacker at Mississippi College, where he earned an accounting degree before going on to law school at the University of North Carolina. He moved to Dallas to practice construction and personal injury defense law.

Approaching Huntley that day was no spur-of-the-moment decision, Brown said. It was something that built for a long time. As a boy, he loved to play with toy soldiers and as a young adult he thought about a career in the military, but he went on to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both lawyers.

After Brown got to Dallas, he started contemplating the switch.

"The law may not be exactly what I want to do — the military's something I've always wanted to do," he said.

Brown, who is single, said he misses being out in the field, building a camaraderie with a group of guys like he did when he played football.

"I wanted to serve the country too," he said. "That was something that really interested me with the Special Forces or Rangers. You give all your time to do that. The bond that you have with that group of guys was something that I didn't feel."

And the possibility of being sent into war isn't something that would stop him from joining.

"I want to go," Brown said. "That's really part of the reason that I'm signing up. You're ready to go out there and do what you can for the country."

Explaining a decision

Making friends and family understand his decision took some work.

"My mom just realized that that's what I really wanted to do," Brown said. "Dad didn't come around until I said, 'It's already done.' He said, 'All right, then I'm behind it.' "

Brown's mother, Patsy Holeman, 53, of Madison, Miss., said Brown told her about a year ago that he still had the urge to join the military.

"He was still searching, still looking," she said. "He just kept saying, 'This is something I've got to do. I've always had this in the back of my mind. I don't want to be 10 to 20 years down the road saying I didn't do it.' "

Will Andrews, 27, of Clinton, La., has been friends with Brown since they played football together in college. He said he didn't know how serious Brown was about enlisting until Brown said he'd talked to a recruiter.

"It did surprise me, but it didn't at the same time," Andrews said.

His co-worker, Randy Montgomery, had the same thoughts.

"I think it's rare that someone will give up as much as he's giving up to go and fight for his country," said Montgomery, a partner at Deary Montgomery DeFeo & Canada in Dallas. "That's a good quality that we don't all have."

These aren't the kinds of stories that are heard often, remember NFL safety Pat Tillman? He took a drastic decrease in pay (obviously by leaving the NFL) to serve his country and as a member of a special forces unit he payed the ultimate sacrifice.

These two men are a shining example of what patriotism is all about. These two were willing to give up very comfortable lives to serve at the bottom of the enlisted ranks just for the opportunity to give back to this great nation.

These are brave men, patriots, and true Americans.

Tomorrow is Nov. 2, election day. Please make sure you support the actions of these two brave men by voting and ensuring they will have a Commander In Chief worthy of their loyalty.

4 MORE YEARS
Bush-Cheney '04

SlagleRock Out!

Posted by SlagleRock at November 1, 2004 07:00 AM