But becoming a Marine?

That wasn't part of the equation for a kid enrolled in the Wharton School of Business at Penn. Those kids go to Wall Street, which is where Nick figured he'd be headed. That all changed, though, when lawyer Alan Dershowitz, whom Nick had met when Dershowitz spoke on campus, helped to arrange an internship for Nick at a Washington think tank dealing with Middle Eastern issues.

There Nick met a man who would have a profound effect on his future: Andrew Exum, a Penn graduate who as a captain in the U.S. Army Rangers saw duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, became a scholar in Middle Eastern studies, and would go on to serve as one of the experts advising Gen. Stanley McChrystal on his Afghanistan policy.