article_snippet.sent: I was eighteen when I joined the United States Marine Corps in 1989.
article_snippet.sent: I took a Navy lieutenant from Arkansas home to meet my parents.
article_snippet.sent: My mother signed for a Navy lieutenant from Arkansas when I was 17.
article_snippet.sent: My mother joined the Air Force in 1983 . '
article_snippet.sent: Being in the military was a way for me to make a better life for myself,' says Charles A. Maxwell, of Decatur, Georgia, who joined the Air Force in 1985 .