The Veteran is on a bus in Chicago wearing greens and camo, a bag of luggage on the seat beside him. He left a boy and is now a man. Long ago he passed the commonly accepted threshold for manhood in the United States, being twenty-eight years of age, but only now can he lay all doubts about his worth to rest. He was dissolved and reborn anew in the flames of service. He not only entered the service willingly but walked away with a Post-9/11 GI Bill, paid in full. No longer will he fear the grasp of college debt.
