Why I became a Mason, and what I have received.

Your question is quite valid, and important. Nevertheless, it is difficult to answer. Men join the Gentle Craft for many reasons. Family tradition, is one. My father and both of my Grandfathers were masons, my uncle (deceased) was a 33rd degree Mason.

Masonry offers men many things, a chance to associate with good men from many different religious and educational backgrounds, fellowship, brotherhood, and a chance for self-improvement. While not a charitable organization, there are opportunities for charitable service. Masonry and the appendant organizations affiliated with Masonry, contribute about $2.6 million dollars per day, to various charitable and philanthropic causes in the USA.
I joined, because of my family tradition, but most especially because men I knew and respected were Masons. Most masons do not realize it, but they are the best advertising the Fraternity has.
During the last 26 years, I have received many things from Masonry. Camaraderie, instructions in ethics and morality, great frienships, and meeting some of the finest men I have ever known. I have sat in lodge in Paris France, with men who risked concentration camps for being Masons. I have sat in lodge in Moscow, Russia, with men who risked being sent to Siberia, for being Masons. I have attended lodge in the very room, where George Washington was made a Mason, in Fredericksburg Virginia.
Masonry enabled me to join the Shriners, and I have transported children to our hospitals for medical treatment. I transported a child, who was born with spina bifida, and his family had no medical insurance. He had to have twenty operations before he was two years old. The costs exceeded one million dollars, and the Shriners paid the entire costs.
Different men receive different rewards from being Masons. We refer to these rewards, as the “wages of a Master Mason”. The wages vary with the individual, and his particular Masonic experience.
I am now assigned to a desolate mountaintop Army base, in Afghanistan. Myself, and the Masons here, are going to establish a traveling military lodge, and continue on with the Masonic tradition, here on the “roof of the world”. Dictators and tyrants have sought to crush Masonry, for centuries. Our lodge will meet, in the very face of terrorism, continuing on with the tradition of religious tolerance, and freedom.
Masonic lodges have met on US Army posts, since Valley Forge. Our lodge has met in the trenches of France in WW1, and on the battlefields of Germany in WW2. We met in Korea, and in the jungles of VietNam. Our lodge met in the desert of Iraq, and now we continue, here on this rocky escarpment, under the mortar fire of the very terrorists who planned the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Hope this answer is helpful to you.