Eddie's main desire to join the Navy seems to stem not from an actual desire to be in the armed forces but, rather, simply to get the heck out of Fresno and get away from all of the dangers it poses to him. He had been anxious, even before his fight with Angel, to get out of town, and he had asked his mother to send him so money so that he could come and visit her for a while. It's as though he knows that he will not be able to avoid trouble in this community forever, and he wants to get out before he gets sucked in. However, after the run-in with Angel, Eddie knows that he would have a target on his back. To this end, he says, "I figured that Angel would be healing at the same time and would soon be after me." He joked before that one does not actually have to know how to swim to join the Navy, and Coach had told him that "Everything's going to be smooth [...]." The Navy seems, in some ways, like the perfect answer to getting out of Fresno; José even makes it sound like a person gets chocolate milk every day when they're in the military! However, the Navy recruiter seems a bit too anxious to get Eddie to sign on the dotted line, and this makes him nervous. Also, it is not as though there are no dangers for people in the military, and so Eddie is essentially trading one set of dangers for another.