He was not far out of high school. The beginnings of a beard were spotty. He was stocky and his face was a little round. He was carrying a knapsack and wearing a baseball cap. He took the aisle seat on my row on a West-bound plane. I was on the window.

He nodded toward me.

"How you doing?" I asked.

"Well," he said, "I'm feeling a little jittery. I've...never done this before."

"You've never taken a plane ride?" I said.

"No," he said.

I told him it would be no problem, and said he was in the best place for a first plane ride, there on the aisle, where he could avoid looking out the window.

"Oh," he said, "I'd rather be by the window. I'd like to look out and see what it's like." I was happy to switch with him.

He was not taking that first ride to see a girlfriend or go on a school trip or visit a grandmother or for any of the other reasons for a first exciting ride on the big aluminum bird. No, he was from Eastern North Carolina, out of school and on his way to a job. His mother was gone, he said. His stepfather was left to take care of several other children.

"I'm the oldest," he said. "I've got to try to help out. It's something I have to do. My stepfather needs help. He can't do it all himself."

In his case, doing what he had to do meant joining the United States Army. He was freshly signed up and headed for basic training. He was excited, he said.

It didn't feel right, somehow, to pry for the details. Had his mother died? Was the family in a bad way? Was joining the military a way for him to to help his brothers and sisters make it? Interrogations may be the way of some seat neighbors on a three-hour plane ride, but it just wasn't the thing to do here. And there were others like him aboard. They nodded toward each other, all with that same, fresh-faced look shaded with a little hesitation.

He'd been out of high school a while, he said, with a confidence that his experience out in the real world was considerable, though it really wasn't. I'd like to have shared some mutual experience with him, but when I tried to explain the draft, and the lottery number system that had kept me and others out of the Vietnam-era military, his eyes drifted like young eyes do when a geezer falls into irrelevant storytelling.

In another time, his adventure might have been just that. Maybe postwar Germany or France, or a place where he would have calmly been exposed to another culture. But it's not another time. "I hope you don't have to go to Iraq," I said. To which he quickly replied, "Oh, I want to. Really, I want to."

For most of the rest of the flight, I glanced over every now and then as we came upon mountains, or through different cloud formations, and saw how he was studying everything.

This war in Iraq, despite its considerable unpopularity, questionable beginnings and doubts about its execution by the higher-ups who are supposed to know what they're doing, is surely like all other wars when it comes to the men and women in the military. So many of them are very young, whether they are country boys from North Carolina or city kids from Brooklyn. For thousands upon thousands, military service has made a big difference all the rest of their days. And they make a difference for their country.

This young fellow on the airplane has no idea what awaits him, but he will carry on. He will miss home. He will call his brothers and sisters and his stepfather with stories.

We landed. "Well, son," I said, "I wish you well and thank you for what you're doing, and hope, even though I know you want to go, that you don't have to go to Iraq." He just nodded.

He'll go, and I know it and he knows it. His will be the face I put on our military service people from now on. An Eastern Carolina kid who made a brave choice. May he thrive, and tell his children and grandchildren all about it.

• • •

In last week's column on the noble effort to battle esophageal cancer with a bike ride in honor of the late Dave Brumitt, the Web site address for those interested in participating on Feb. 25 was wrong. It's frostbitetour.org

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