¢ Aaron Emerson of Lawrence, a specialist in the Army, is profiled in a Reuters story about Americans who are choosing to join the military to fight an unpopular war in Iraq.!_”I begged and cried and pleaded for him not to join,” said Misty Emerson, his mother, fingering a peace symbol of pink rhinestones on a necklace. “He is going to be so far away, for so long. And he’ll be in danger.”__Emerson, 25, joins the ranks of mostly anonymous young Americans who are pushing aside jobs and families for a cause that many Americans now question.__His background as a low-income, small-town son of a single mother puts him in the core demographic of the tens of thousands of young Americans sent to Iraq._