ot: death in the Ring / death in the ring and poverty

The very best thing in Leavander Johnson's life, the thing that did the
most to make that life worthwhile, led him to a bad end he knew full
well was possible. The answer isn't to remove that option from the
lives of future Leavander Johnsons. The option is to honor his memory
by continuing to work on systems to make fights as safe as possible,
while accepting that somewhere, somehow, for as long as there are poor
people and foreclosed options, people will fight face-to-face and other
people will pay to watch them. The only way to completely eliminate
that would be to completely eliminate poverty.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-lampley/death-in-the-ring_b_7939.html

Several slightly-modified sentences [modifications in square brackets]
of ___ post could serve as a mad lib obituary for the hundreds of
service personnel killed in the current Iraq war:
"This much I can get my head around: (insert name of deceased Iraq war
veteran) _______ ________ was a poor (insert race) ________ (insert
gender) _____ from one of our nation's poorest (pick one: cities,
towns, rural areas) __________. Without [the military], (his/her)
chances of seeing the world beyond the (mean streets/dusty roads)
around (him/her) were questionable. With the (insert branch of the
armed forces) __________, (name) ________ __________ had goals and
identity and a purpose for (insert age at death minus 18) _______ years
of adult life. He/she saw Frankfort, Bahrain and Baghdad,... he earned
money which [(he/she) may have saved for the college education of which
(he/she) never had the chance to partake, and of which (he/she) could
not have dreamed without enlisting.]...
"They take the risk to improve their lives, and the lives of the people
around them, and often they do so because it's the only such option
they have.
"...for as long as there are poor people and foreclosed options, people
will [join the military], and other people will [send them to war]."

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