Here's my story as an 18x hopeful:
I entered college on an art scholarship and pursued interactive media design from the get-go. My sophomore year I took a poly-sci class, joined the College Democrats, and started to pay a lot more attention to the news and politics. That year I went to Mexico and saw true poverty for the first time. Although I've seen ghettos in Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Indiana, I'd never seen abject poverty like you find in failed nation states. So that experience got me much more interested in international politics and economics. Unfortunately by this time I'd already completed half my major and was still on the art scholarship. So I worked on completing that, and the next year I went to China, then Greece the next year, and took some globalization and history classes. By the end of my junior year I'd lost all my passion for web design and just skated by on mediocre grades to complete my degree. After getting out of school I floated around working dead end jobs like factory line worker, food service, etc. until a year after post graduation I started getting interested in the military. My girlfriend at the time (and current love interest, soon to get married) graduated a year before and put together her application for Navy OCS. After 2 years of frustration for her, and a year of headaches for me, she got accepted (she had to get 3 waivers) and earned her commission last December. After researching the Navy with her and having a few friends sign up, I got more serious about it and got very interested in the Navy SEALs. I had big plans to get a commission and be a SEAL officer, but I was very naive, impatient, and dare I say stupid.
After learning that the process would likely take 1.5-2 years to get accepted to OCS on a SEAL contract, I started looking at the USMC and talking to a recruiter in Indiana. I got my application put together and got all of my reference letters ready. My girlfriend got stationed in San Diego, so I moved here with the intention of submitting my application to the west coast Marine OSO in San Diego. I called them and was not so politely informed that I was absolutely a no-go because of a DUI arrest (non conviction) and that I shouldn't bother trying because they are the number 1 recruiting office in the U.S. Well, that pissed me off a little bit because I knew from the OSO in Kentucky (closest recruiter to me at the time) that I could get a waiver, so the SD office was simply unwilling to consider working with me without even talking to me in person first.
With crushed dreams I went back to square 1. Along with my girlfriend getting her commission in December, my dad passed away from throat cancer Dec. 30th, and it made me realize that I hadn't really done anything with my life. I thought about that for a while, and realized that it wasn't about making him proud, it was that I hadn't accomplished anything to make myself proud. The reason why I wasn't proud of getting my B.S. was because of mediocre grades, and those weren't for the lack of talent but as a result of a lack of discipline. That was a serious character flaw, and I knew that I needed to change something in my life and make myself a better person. Since then I've been working hard on bettering myself and decided that there was no way I wasn't going to be in the military
I found out a friend who had signed up with an 18x contract had just finished airborne school and was starting SOPC, and I'd realized that I hadn't given the Army a chance. I read a ton about what SF did, and found out that it was exactly what I wanted to do. So I talked to a recruiter 2 miles from me and had a great experience with him and started pursuing the 18x option. Took the ASVAB and did well, and am now waiting on some other stuff to finish up the process so I can get a contract to sign.
I could expound upon why I think SOF is the most important aspect of modern military, but that would make an already long-winded post into a dissertation, but suffice to say that I feel like with the advent of unconventional tactics and terrorism that warfare has been irrevocably changed and greater emphasis needs to be placed on understanding local cultures and working with local populations.