Many American high school students from lower socio-economic backgrounds see military service as a vehicle for advancement. Various branches of the Armed Forces have consistently provided underprivileged youths enlisting in the military with a means to escape poverty. Generous benefits, adequate pay, college tuition, and specialized training in career interests--generally inaccessible to them in their struggle for a future--provide these young people with opportunities in American society of which they could otherwise only dream. These impoverished, at-risk high school students found it difficult to ignore the offer of opportunities for building a better future. This article reports on the experience in Iraq of one of the author's former high school students, Bikransky, who joined the National Guard in the hope of building a better future. (Contains 26 notes.)