Marcel Williams Essay

It was September 14, 1958. Marcel Williams grew up in Detroit, Michigan, not the safest city, who was a sophomore in Mumford High School. Marcel grew up in a poor family with only his mother and two sisters, so he was always helping out and running errands, therefore he learned to stick up for himself and responsibility. He worked at a 7-11 near his house which was the only income in his family because his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and his two sisters were two young to work. Marcel didn’t have many friends. In fact, his only friend just moved away, so he didn’t have a very good time at school. Marcel always sat in the back of his classes and was either reading or studying to make good grades to get into a good college. He was great at sports considering he was five foot eleven and pretty muscular, and in the fall he made the football team and became the running-back, and became pretty popular. A few months later his mom died, which left him and his sisters with his grandparents. His grandparents didn’t were retired
so it was hard trying to take care of themselves and three children, so Marcel decided to enlist in the army, being seventeen. When he told his grandparents who weren’t fond of his decision insisted on him staying but Marcel was determined to help others and serve his country. He had one week to prepare and say his goodbyes before leaving. When his ship-date arrived his grandparents and siblings went with him to the air-port. When they got there his grandma embraced him and told him to be safe, then he got on the plane to go to training camp. When Marcel got onto the plane he decided to sit next to another African American male who looked like he was in his late teens.
Marcel introduced himself and the guy introduced himself as Carstan. He explained that he enlisted in the military because he wanted to be a medic because he felt like he needed a purpose and felt that that was the way to serve people. Marcel and Carstan shared stories for the next three hours on the plane. When the plane landed they were transported to the training camp by infantry transporting trucks. When they arrived at training camp they were showed to their sleeping quarters which had around ten bunk-beds on each side of the room. Marcel shared his bunk with Carstan, and put their stuff under the bed. The next morning his platoon went to the rifle range to learn how to shoot which was beneficial to Marcel because he’s never touched a gun. Marcel realized that he had a really good shot as well as
Carstan. The next day, Marcel and his platoon of around forty soldiers started walking toward an American bunker located up the battlefield. When they were about to arrive at the bunker there was machine-gun shots coming at them from the bunker most of his platoon