Most folks join the military for college money or a job. They may also have a sense of patriotism and a general feeling that they are serving God & Country. Only 1 in 8 soldiers who sign up for the military to get college money ever get a degree...and I found that God was not on the hearts and minds of those training me to kill the enemies of my nation. If one wants to serve God & Country and still go to college then there are many other paths to that end. Those that sign up in the military as a job get what being a mercenary gives you. I do agree that there needs to be an alternative to serving in the military...if one wants to serve their country to get a college degree... Working with children from at-risk schools, assisting in homeless shelters, volunteering in soup kitchens, and assisting abandoned elderly people...or a hundred other ways that have nothing to do with combat or the military. There are thousands of ways to help others and serve one's nation... I for one served in the military and found I was not serving the God of my belief system(God who is love)...but rather that the military I served in served the god of this world... and not the next one... If I were asked to become a murderer for the Corporate elite and all of the Princes of this world again or given the alternative of serving the poor and powerless for getting money to go to college, I would certainly choose the later...Given no choice...but to become a slave mercenary, I would choose to non-violently resist to the greatest capacity I was capable of doing so ... up and unto my own death... Shooting and killing the children of other nations or my own nation does not serve love in any capacity...