I joined the Army in 2015. It had always been a goal of mine to serve, and like a lot of kids whose families passed down work ethic instead of money, it was also a realistic way to pay for college.
I was working at Amazon for the second time. I liked the people and I liked moving all day. For a guy in his early twenties with his own apartment in downtown Phoenix, the pay was decent. But the feeling that I was supposed to be doing something more kept eating at me while I moved through the warehouse like an ant in a colony.
The first time I worked at Amazon I was a picker — the hardest job in the building. You stay on a clock, grab items, scan them, and move. Miss the numbers enough times and they take your badge. That happened to me during peak season in a warehouse so big the supervisors didn’t even know your name.
The second time I came back with a plan. I got into inbound, then worked my way through stocking, dunnage, the dock, forklifts, and support roles. I learned every job in my department, crossed into inventory, and during peak I started training the temporary workers. They offered me a permanent position. I took it. I had basically done everything in the warehouse short of being a manager. I needed a new challenge.
I had thought about joining the military years earlier. When I was still in high school, recruiters used to come around. One time I brought a couple of them home. My mother took one look at them and shoed them straight out of the house in the name of Jesus. That was the end of it for a while.
Years later I was living on my own in a one bedroom next to Rito's, and the decision was finally mine. I had done everything I could do at the warehouse. I needed a real way to pay for college without mountains of debt. I walked into the nearest recruiting office. Before I could finish my first question the Marine recruiter stopped me, tapped the tattoo across my collarbone, and told me that disqualified me. Then he pointed next door like he was showing me the consolation prize: “The Army will take you.”
The process was straightforward. No serious legal trouble, no mental health flags. The rules were simple — stay clean and don’t get arrested. I had dinged up a knee playing softball with guys from the warehouse, but after a few movement tests the senior NCO cleared me. They sent me to MEPS. My recruiter gave me strict instructions for the weigh-in: almost no food, mostly melon, hit the sauna, come in under weight. I followed them exactly, passed everything, and was accepted. I had about six months before I shipped.
I started boxing at Calderone Boxing Gym a little before my contract was finalized. I told the coach my goal — get ready for the Army. He had trained fighters for years. He built a plan for me. Every day after work I went to the gym and put in the hours.
This was different from high school football. He taught me how to train hard without constantly guzzling water, a core skill boxers learn so they don’t fight with a stomach full of fluid. I had a natural aptitude for it. I liked the adrenaline and the feeling of pushing my body past where it wanted to stop. I was a southpaw and a switch-foot, habits I had picked up training on my own from Bruce Lee and Jeet Kune Do before I ever met him. Most coaches would have broken that down and started over. He worked with what I already had. At one point he even said I should try out for the Army boxing team, and that if I wasn’t shipping out I might have had a real shot at fighting professionally.
Those nights left me soaked in sweat. Between sessions I would jog from Van Buren all the way up toward Diamondbacks Stadium and back.
One day he gave me a different kind of assignment. He told me about a less-traveled trail on South Mountain and said I needed to run it. That trail became the first place I spent real time alone in the Arizona desert. Huge boulders stacked across the path, surrounded by Joshua trees, agave, barrel cactus, and prickly pear. The only sounds were the wind and the rhythmic pat of my sneakers on those old stones.
From the lookout at the top you could see Phoenix to the north. There was a small stone gazebo up there that looked like a tiny castle. It became my Saturday ritual. I went in every season until it was time to leave for basic training.
That mountain is where the hiking passion started. I later started going up Piestewa Peak and Camelback, but South Mountain always stayed my favorite — the place I first found it. I began driving up there just to watch the sunrise and the sunset.
That mountain felt like a graduation. The coach had been the wise hand that prepared me, and the trail was the final test before I stepped into whatever came next.
I left with a group of recruits from the station. We went to the airport with instructions to stay together. I was one of the older ones and had already been promoted from a fuzzy to a mosquito-wing private, so I was put in charge of keeping the group tight until our tickets split us up.
Somewhere between the first flight and the bus that would take methe rest of the way to basic, the reality started settling in. I had broken up with my girlfriend because of all the Jody stories the recruiters told us. I had given up a decent job and my apartment. My car was sitting at my parents’ house. I had shaved off my curly Afro. I had left my family — they weren’t perfect— and now I was on a long bus ride in the middle of the night surrounded by strangers.
I sat there wondering what the in the world I had just done.
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