How to Travel Free,
Meet Interesting People and Then Kill Them

Why does a wholesome travel guide like DP dabble in the shadowy world of the military and contract soldiering?

Well first of all, a lot of our readers took their first big trip paid for by Uncle Sam. Secondly, for those who view signing up as a short cut to adventure, you should be informed that soldiering is probably the most glamorized but least adventurous profession out there. There is also the overly glamorized world of contract soldiering (also known as mercenaries) where people with military skills can work overseas protecting, training, and fighting.

There is a romantic side to contract soldiering, probably best typified by Rudyard Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King. It's a simple tale about ex-soldiers deciding to make themselves rulers in a remote northwest Indian backwater. The results are predictable, but the moral is timeless. The world is changed by men who step outside the boundaries of law and convention and take matters into their own hands. They force change. That is why you will find sedate countries both vilifying and hiring soldiers. Most people think mercenaries are cartoon characters or figments of scriptwriter's imaginations. The truth is Hollywood hires real mercenaries to consult on their action-packed feature films. Even Uncle Sam sells its expertise to Angola, Colombia and Uganda and other tin-pot countries to train local troops and indulge in close support on missions.

Adventure stirs deep in the loins of youth and there is little that a well-trained soldier can do in civilian life that matches the intensity and focus of combat. What else can well-trained adventurers do to make this world a better place and tell stories to their grandkids? In the old days, you could ride off to the Crusades, discover the New World or just raise hell in some wealthy potentate's army. Since then, there have been few noble wars to occupy the heroic and romantic. Between our great and not-so-great wars (when Uncle Sam made you volunteer), poets, thugs and the bloodthirsty have volunteered for a variety of romantic causes, from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War. Today, those who seek to make a difference by direct action can choose to join an army or group that is actively fighting for independence, freedom or any other cause. Keep in mind that you can lose your American citizenship if you choose to be a mercenary (although no U.S. contract soldier or mercenary has to date) and your chances of being summarily executed by the side of the road if captured are high. So let's start out with the PC version of military adventure The Army.