Boys State and a Village Far Away. . . .

Joe enjoyed his time at Boys State – so much so that he applied to join the staff and teach a new generation of students. After his junior year of high school, Joe received his commission to West Point. He returned to Boys State a few more times, but military service eventually made his continued time with the program impossible. Time passed, and Joe did several tours of duty in foreign lands. He had attained the rank of captain with the United States Army and, with war in Iraq upon us, a new set of orders arrived: establish a new government and preside over a small city in southern Iraq. Several weeks into his duty, it occurred to Joe that he’d done this before. He remembered back to his days at Boys State and was compelled to write to his old friends and tell them the story of how lessons he had learned at Boys State just a few years earlier were playing out in front of him on this much larger stage.

Joe is currently serving his latest tour of duty in Iraq, protecting Iraqi oil refineries from sabotage and theft.