Ready for the future.

Byline: Pete Iorizzo

Apr. 22--BOSTON -- Three college students loaf around a dining hall early one morning, with plates of half-eaten toast, empty bowls of cereal, scattered sausage links and a couple of hard-boiled eggs littering the space in front of them.

They talk about school, about that oh-so-hard class they took freshman year; how they fell asleep at their desk a few times; how they liked this professor, hated that professor, found this one hard and this one easy.

They tease each other about their most recent basketball game, a two-man round of H-O-R-S-E in the Boston College recreation center. "Once I hit my groove, it was over," one says, before his buddy can answer, "Give me a break. I haven't played basketball in like seven years!"

They complain about whose roommate ate whose food, about who makes the most mess and about who owes whom a couple bucks.

They talk like any other college pals readying for graduation and relishing their last few weeks on the sanctuary of a campus. One of the three, Amsterdam High graduate Josh Beekman, acknowledges the same feelings of anxiety and nostalgia, unease and excitement, that grip most graduates-in-waiting.

Except Beekman's experience, as this morning shows, is not like most.

Six days from today, he faces another sort of …