FROM TROUBLEMAKER TO SOLDIER
Evan Sanborn before he enlisted in the Army, above, and in a more recent photo, below. (Click to enlarge)
By DAN NATALE
[Editor’s note: an earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Evan Sanborn is beginning his second tour of duty in Afghanistan. In fact it is his first.]
Ever thought about taking your crappy life and fixing it by joining the military? Well thatÂ’s exactly what one Red Bank man did.
Last Friday, 20-year-old Private Evan Sanborn, an infantryman in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, left Fort Drum in New York to spend nine months in Paktika Province on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Sanborn’s departure, honored last month by Red Bank’s mayor and council, marks another step in a self-motivated turnaround for a onetime troublemaker whose teen years were marked by drug use and occasional homelessness.