The Taliban drove his family out of Afghanistan when he was a child. Now he wants to go back as a...

There's no one path to military service. For some, it's a lifelong goal, for others, it's a choice made in an instant.

or 27-year-old Marine Pvt. Atiqullah Assadi, who graduated from Marine Corps bootcamp on July 12, the decision to enlist was the culmination of a journey that began when he and his family were forced to flee their home in Afghanistan.

The son of a wealthy banker at the time the Taliban came to power, Assadi was four years old when his father sent his mother and sisters to live with their relatives in a remote village, Warrant Officer Bobby Yarborough, a spokesman with Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, told Task & Purpose.

"I would love to return," Assadi said in a recent Marine Corps video by Cpl. Daniel Lobo. "It's beautiful there. It reminds me of Colorado and Washington, other than the parts, where unfortunately extremism and the terrorists, you know, took over. People started getting scared, and tried to leave home. I remember that very vividly"