“Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.” – Albert Camus

Last week I mentioned in a July 4th post about how I stumbled across Nick Sloan, a soldier in Iraq writing a personal finance blog called Journey to Financial Freedom. Why did Nick volunteer to go to Iraq? The short answer is money but I’ll let Nick elaborate below. He writes:

I volunteered to come to Iraq because of the extra money I earn while here. I’m using that money to get out of debt and get a new start on my financial future. I was in so much debt at home that I could barely keep my head above water. My answer: volunteer for Iraq. Obviously, that is not a course of action that would appeal to most people. I would like to leave aside any and all considerations of political views or other commentary on the war there. That is not what this blog is about. This blog is about money and investments. Before I came to Iraq, I had neither. You may be wondering, ‘What is so good about coming to Iraq?’ Well, I can list the advantages here.

A few other PF bloggers chimed in on the story. J.D. at Get Rich Slowly writes:

Nick keeps a blog in which he describes how he’s gone from $70,000 in debt to $14,000 in debt in just six months. (But he’s had to dodge mortar shells to do it!)

His tour will last another 11 months. Is it worth the risk? After an insurgent lobbed a mortar into the Green Zone and the impact pushed him out of bed, he said, “It makes you think about what is really important in life.” Then Nick adds:

It got me to thinking about what would happen if I died. Since I am very financially minded at the moment, I was thinking mostly about finances after my death. Technically speaking, I am worth a lot more dead that alive.

He continues on and discusses his life insurance policies and how his fiancée and mother would benefit upon his death.

Kim Ponders told me in an email that Nick’s story really is not that uncommon. She writes:

I used to get excited about going overseas, too, because of all the extra money...of course, it was a lot safer back then.

Mapgirl from Mapgirl’s Fiscal Challenge weighs in with her own considerations about joining the military. She explains:

I have yet to read Nick’s blog, but I think it is shameful that in a wealthy country like the US, a lot kids use the GI Bill to go to college as their only route to pay tuition. Two of the kids who work for my parents left to go to boot camp and eventually, Iraq, all because they couldn’t pay for college otherwise. (There may have been a hint of an academic problem there as well. I didn’t pry.)

I applaud Nick’s bravery, but surely, there has to be another way. He may be worth more dead, but I would very much like him and his colleagues to be alive and come home.

Paradoxically, I have considered joining the military several times because of the pay and training. (It runs through your mind when you live in the nation’s capital.) As a college educated individual, I’d likely be able stay in IT/Telecom work and never see anything directly dangerous.

SoldierGrrrl writes:

My husband and I did back to back tours in Iraq, and yes, it was great for us financially. We have differing outlooks on this war, although both of us agree that it has to be seen through.

Before deploying, I had no hope of buying a home, paying of my debts, or any other sign of achieving the American Dream.

After 27 months time in country, my husband and I paid for a wedding, put a down payment on seven-plus acres of land in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, and have a wonderful emergency fund.

Was it worth it? Most of the time, I would say yes. After waking up from a nightmare or remembering friends lost, I’ll still say yes, but it’s heavily qualified. The military is, and will be, a ladder to better things for many many young people.

Sestos is another soldier using the money in Iraq to pay off debts. He writes:

My first deployment allowed for me to pay off my car and college loans; this deployment will allow me to start my path to retirement and savings.

One army wife commented on Nick’s post with these words of advice:

I’m an army wife, husband is currently serving in Iraq on his second tour and we are saving every penny we can on this tour, just as we did the first. I work full time and we live off one income (mine) and save the rest. I enjoy reading your perspective on personal finance.

I speak from experience, I too had too much credit card debt, hit rock bottom, fought my way back, paid it all off and we just bought our second home, good investments, strong savings and live no where near paycheck to paycheck.

Jay from Blogblivian adds:

It made me think of a couple of other outsized pay things I’ve seen in my life. One was the Alaska pipeline construction, where people would go work on it and earn outsized money for the isolation and lousy conditions involved. Same thing is happening right now for oil sand workers in northern Alberta.

Another was nuclear plant migrant workers. At a time when 25k a year was decent enough money, these guys, without special skills, would get 1k or more per week to travel to different nuclear plants for maintenance work, basically getting paid for the risk, the overall limit on how long they could do it before they’d hit radiation limits, and the traveling and being away from wherever they called home. I met some of them when I worked at a convenience store relatively near the power plant in Plymouth, MA.

People probably used those in similar ways.

And finally Grad Student offers these thoughts:

The money dimensions of the war on both institutional and individual levels is extremely important to foreground, I think. Of course, one feels a lot for someone like Nick who feels like he has to choose to risk his life in this way to get out of debt.

What immediately comes to mind: 1. In a more just society, would money have this coercive force? (a force unequally distributed along axes of race, ethnicity, gender and, obviously, class); 2. What’s the connection between this soldier’s choices and the choices of big business contractors and of the energy and military production industries that hawked it up leading up to the war in Iraq for self-interested reasons?

Those are great questions. So is this one from Claire at Tired but Happy. She concludes:

I have tears in my eyes. I understand why Nick is doing what he’s doing, but it just breaks my heart that this is what he felt he had to do. Shouldn’t there be better economic possibilities for a smart, well-spoken, healthy young man?

What do you think?

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Nina Smith blogs about money at Queercents.