"I always wanted to be a Marine, ever since I was a little kid," he explained. Plus, signing up means he won't have to pay rent or an insurance bill, and he figures he'll be able to save enough money to open his own auto body shop when he's done. "I have a dream, and I should follow it."

Military records show that Michigan's military recruits come disproportionately from the state's most rural areas, where young people enlist at a rate double that in the most populous parts of the state.

Last year, the slab of land around North Branch sent 30 people into the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy, according to the military records provided by the National Priorities Project, a Massachusetts research group. It got the figures from an anti-war group that requested them from the Pentagon. Their figures did not include Marines, but similar studies that did include them reached the same conclusion.

The records offer the most detailed picture yet of where the United States gets its soldiers, and come at a time when the nation is fighting a war against a stubborn insurgency in Iraq, thousands of soldiers remain in Afghanistan and several branches of the military are struggling to attract enough recruits.

In the state's 45 most rural counties -- those in which at least 60 percent of people live in rural areas -- about seven of every 1,000 young people ages 18-24 enlisted last year. In the state's most populous counties, about four of every 1,000 young adults signed up.

"I think it tells us that young people with limited opportunities are more likely to join the armed forces," said Anita Bancs, research director for the National Priorities Project, a Massachusetts-based nonpartisan nonprofit that gives people information about how government works. "If we're going to engage in war, we ought to know who the people are who volunteer, who are serving in the armed forces and who put themselves at risk."

This year, Letts, a wiry 18-year-old Eagle Scout, held the Bible when North Branch swore in its new postmaster. Afterward, he approached a Marine recruiter who was there and told him he wanted to sign up. He will join as soon as he finishes high school. He will take his first entrance test Monday.

Letts talked it over with his parents, who had reservations. "They are supportive, but they don't like the thought of me going to war," he said.

He follows the news from Iraq, where more than 2,100 American combat personnel have died since the war began in 2003. "I think it's mostly mind over matter. If I have been trained right, then I should not have any problem. If God chose it as my time to go, then that's it.

Letts said one of his friends also plans to enlist in the Marines, and another wants to join the Navy. That's not unusual around North Branch, a village of 1,000 people about 75 miles north of Detroit.

"It's opportunity as much as anything else," said Carolyn Medford, a counselor at North Branch High School. "There aren't a lot of careers here. A lot of people have relatives who've gone into the service already; they see (the military) as a viable way to start a career."

Most of those who enlist in Michigan end up in the Army, the recruiting records show. George Noirot, a spokesman for the Army's Michigan recruiting battalion, said he has not seen evidence that recruits come disproportionately from rural or depressed areas. "I don't see that pattern," he said. "I see a pattern where individual recruiters do better than other recruiters, and I see a pattern where some communities might be more supportive."

While the rate at which people sign up is higher in rural areas, the majority of recruits still come from more populous parts of the state. Because the figures include only the number of recruits in 2004, it is impossible to say how that pattern has changed over time.

National Priorities Project researchers said the military's records also show young people from low- and middle-income areas are disproportionately likely to enlist, though such a pattern was not apparent in Michigan, where the group's data showed little relationship between household income and the rate at which people join the armed forces.

A study this month by the conservative Heritage Foundation, using similar recruiting records, found soldiers come disproportionately from middle-class areas of the country and that people in the lowest-income areas are less likely than others to enlist. It also found that young people from the wealthiest parts of the country make up a larger share of new recruits than they did before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

"It's reassuring that things are going in the direction they're going," said Tim Kane, one of the Heritage study's researchers. "It helps dispel myths because at the end of the day, if this was an unpopular war, it would be very clear to see in the recruiting patterns."

The recruiting records for 2004 were obtained from the Pentagon by Peacework Magazine, a branch of an anti-war Quaker organization, which provided them to the National Priorities Project. They do not include military officers, people who enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, or members of the National Guard, who have been widely deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Principals and guidance counselors in the area around North Branch said many of the students they've seen enlist saw the military as providing the starting point for their careers that the local economy does not. They enlist because of the chance to get technical training or to pay for college. "This is a fairly economically deprived area, and it's a way to get some post-high school training at government expense," said Dennis Grunden, the principal of nearby Lakeview High School.

The military has long been a strong lure for people who don't see many other opportunities, said Barbara Moore, a State University of New York at Buffalo sociology professor who has studied recruiting. "It pretty much appeals to those who have low incomes and don't seem to have great prospects on the outside, or at least they think they don't," she said.

That decision is clearly complicated by the war. Since the United States invaded Iraq, the Pentagon has found itself confronted by fewer and less-qualified recruits. The Army and its reserve and National Guard branches each fell more than 8 percent below their recruiting goals in the fiscal year that ended in September.

In Michigan, the number of active-duty Army recruits has dropped 23 percent since 2002, though they increased slightly last year. At the same time, the Army last year accepted more recruits who scored at the lowest level on aptitude tests.

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