No offense to his girlfriend's mother, but 23-year-old Charles Eccleston of Pittsfield wants out.

He wants out of her house, where he and his girlfriend and their 10-week-old baby, Adam, have been living the past month.

He wants to restore his pride and independence, wants to support his partner and baby without turning to someone for help.

He wants to be all he can be. In the Army.

"I came in here because I was very stupid with my life before," Eccleston said Friday, sitting in the Army recruiting lobby on Loudon Road. "I made a lot of mistakes, which got me to be unemployed. I'm looking to be in the Army to get discipline and a good career under my feet."

He sat with his girlfriend of three years, Lisa Clements. Adam, impervious to the pressure on this young couple and content to snuggle in his baby carriage, sucked down lunch like there was no tomorrow.

Eccleston was a slice of life, part of the bigger picture in this recruiting center, one of 11 across the state.

A narrow hallway connects the lobby to small offices, with pictures about being "Army strong" hanging on both walls as you walk deeper into the building. There is no way to gauge how many people, looking for a new and different life, will visit or call the center.

"A lot of times it depends on the number of events going on, job fairs, career fairs at a high school," said Christine Chambers, commander of the state's Army recruiting program. "Maybe a few days after that we'll see people walk in or call."

"We could get no phone calls; we could get 100 phone calls," said Sgt. Kathleen Hall of Epsom, who's been in the Army for 18 years. "One so far today."

That was Eccleston. He's a Pembroke Academy graduate who lost his manufacturing job three months ago. He's lost other jobs, too, as a landscaper and a manager at a fast-food restaurant. He's also lost his apartment.

He lives with Clements's mother in Pittsfield. As you might expect, the arrangement has been less than perfect.

"She invited us to come there because of our situation, and now it's not panning out as well as she apparently thought it was going to," Eccleston said. "It's rough living there, but it's a place to live. We want to get out of that situation and be on our own."

Enlisting takes on new meaning these days. We're at war. Our soldiers are dying in Afghanistan, seemingly every week, certainly with more frequency than in years past.

"I have no problem with serving my country," Eccleston said. "I want to serve my country."

Single page