Published on: Monday, January 28, 2013

By Jessica Wilde, Capital News Service

WASHINGTON — At 19, Adrea Benedetti was at a roadblock. He was headed down “a path of self-destruction,” but he chose to join the Army instead.

Benedetti’s father was killed when he was 3, and his mother died of breast cancer 10 years later. His grandmother raised him, and when he dropped out of high school at 16, he moved in with relatives, then with friends.

One day, while walking to work, an Army recruiter pulled over and gave him her card.

Benedetti joined the Army three weeks later and said he changed drastically over the next four years. The discipline of the Army and the people he met gave him ambition and focus.

Now he is completing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland University College, in Adelphi, on the GI Bill. He is studying criminal justice and hopes to one day either rejoin the Army as an officer or pursue a career in the FBI.