BREWER – Eric Ronco was ready to leave in the morning for Parris Island and a four-year active duty enlistment with the U.S. Marines. His party was just beginning, but the laughter and friendly ribbing belied the serious nature of his send-off. With more news of armed conflict flooding in every day the question is, why would anyone want to enlist right now?

“I want to be a leader. I would like to be able to lead people doing something. Right now I just think that’s kind of my calling,” Ronco, 19, said.

The young man sat on a stool in the kitchen of his father and step-mother’s house, greeting people with jabs and jokes as they arrived. His short blond hair shaved close to his head, it is easy to imagine Ronco in uniform, but his youthful demeanor and slightly self-conscious movements make it difficult to think of him in combat. He is, however, the same age as many of the young men already overseas.

One of Ronco’s friends at the party, Christopher Noyes, has already enlisted in the Reserves and completed boot camp, while Jason Richter has enlisted for active duty and will enter boot camp this summer. All three young men are serious about becoming Marines, and they are realistic about that choice.

“If people from Maine that are in the military are going to war, then I want to be with them because I think I can do it … I’d go to war with guys from Maine,” Noyes, 19, said.

Ronco and Noyes are Brewer High grads. Richter will begin training after he graduates from Brewer in June. Now 18, he enlisted at 17 and needed his parents’ permission to do so.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. [The Marines] have always been considered an elite, I suppose. I’d like to be overseas, I just want to see the world and adventure a little bit,” Richter said.

All-American boys who played football together in high school, they aren’t just looking for a fight, either.

“People are dying over there every day, and life’s cheap [there]. Hussein didn’t have any respect for his own people and he just did it because he was a military leader,” Noyes said. “You can’t be all about fighting and killing your own people and just getting money.”

Richter agreed, and believes that the cause more than justifies the means.

“They’ve been tortured, denied rights for the last 35 years and there’s nothing wrong with going over there and helping them,” he said.

While Noyes and Richter cite the liberation of others as one of their motivations for joining, Ronco cites his family and friends as inspiration for his enlistment.

“I know that I would be fighting for times like, for you guys in this kitchen right now, for my mom and my brother back in Nebraska. It’s not about the president,” said Ronco.

For now, the young men face an uncertain future, waiting on government orders. Noyes, a University of Maine student and a reservist, has been told he will be deployed in January 2006. Afterwards, he plans to go to flight school, go through officer training and re-enlist for six years.

“In 10 years, I’ll be up for re-enlistment, and deciding whether I want to stay in the Marine Corps or not,” Noyes said. “I can’t make that decision now because if I have a family, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

All three young men have remarkably clear views of their futures. They have different plans, but they all understand that those plans aren’t concrete.

Ready to enter boot camp at the end of June, Richter is signed up for four years active duty, followed by four years inactive.

“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do so I’m just going to play it by ear,” Richter said. “I hope to stay in the military. I hope to get an education while I’m in.”

For Ronco, man of the night, morning was set to bring another chapter of the future. He laughed again at some of the joking filling the kitchen around him, and stopped to contemplate the question of where he would like to be 10 years from now. He squared himself to answer honestly.

“In 10 years, I’d like to be alive, happy, and if I love the Marine Corps and what I do, then still in it.”

Jessie Mellott is a student at the University of Maine.