Anthony Gales joined the U.S. Army 20 years to the day before I met him in Parkin, Ark., Aug. 8.

Had he stayed in, he'd probably be retired now, instead of helping his uncle get a run down gas station back in business.

"My intention was to be a lifer," he says.
"We went to Panama and Saudi Arabia and then we went to Haiti, and I absolutely hated what we had to do over there. It was a 'keep the peace' mission, but basically  we were just letting people starve to death… One of our directives was to not assist in any way. And there were all these children begging for food and dying around us."

He de-enlisted shortly after and embarked on a journey like mine through the U.S. and Mexico.

His advice for me: "Always call your parents when you're doing something like that." My mom put out a missing persons report on me. I found out when I was pulled over in Kansas.