Uh, like if believing a stable home increases chance of success requires you to be a "conservative", I'd be fucked. Idiotic op-ed. Yes, he's a victim. No, being a victim doesn't mean giving up. It *can* mean not blaming yourself & not taking your predicament as a sign of your own weakness. A chance yo start anew. It really doesn't matter if he realized he was a victim or not to use the military as a way out, as a new opportunity. And yeah, the military is a time-proven way for relatively getting your shit together. As Rober Mueller said, it taught him to make his bed. Every day. To put the little things right so bigger things can too.

Though I'm reading Dylan's Chronicles - and there are other ways of doing things. Still disciplined, but in a less deterministic way. And that's Dylan - he was driven, found a light, a mission. And recognized his weaknesses, learned how to navigate. And passed many on the road who didn't, kept clinbing (though not always). The military smooths all that - builds a bridge over the wilderness. But if that's all you want, you end up w sanitized modern Japan with megatons of poured concrete. Sure, it solves some immediate probs, but strips out beauty. If you've been abandoned, maybe you'll give up beauty for security and certainty. But that's not a complete picture of life and its possibilities. Being liberal means accepting *his* conservatism and *my* quasi-informed liberalism, and a whole bunch of additional viewpoints left, right and uncatalogable.