"Hurry up! We gotta go. We are to bypass 3rd ID in Baghdad and take the northern part of Iraq."…
Somewhere in the Middle East there is a mom fighting in a foreign war. The gunpowder smoke coagulating in her lungs, hearing the cries for help, and not knowing if she’ll ever see her 2 year old son again. Soldiers everywhere do this every day not knowing if they are going home ever to see their loved ones. They do this because they are selfless and are heroes. That’s why an American I believe in is made possible by the sacrifices of our military.…
Pow! Right smack in my forehead crushing my skull. The metal baseball bat knocked in my skull. It was a warm sunny day in the middle of the summer. Joey, my brother, was hitting tennis balls over my house. Little 10 year old me was playing in the yard and my brother purposely pushed me far away so he wouldn’t hit me. Oh how I was a stupid little kid. I was intrigued by what he was doing so I started wandering over to like how not knowing little kids do. As I approached my brother he was so focused on himself that he did not see me. When I finally reached him he had just set up to hit another ball. He hits the ball, but on his back rotation, the bat makes contact with my head. I fell hard on the pavement. Before I went unconscious I heard my…
I am a “boot” adjusting to my new life in kilo company, and corporal has recently returned from a nasty deployment in iraq. He says that he is my father and that he knows what’s best. he kicks sand at me while i am timed to see how fast i can pick up all the yellow cigarette butts he dumped on the floor to “fix” my attention to detail and remind me of my ignorance, as he yells, “you are going to war soon, and I won’t be there to babysit you!” During the deployment workups in the states, we spent weeks patrolling, looking for something that we knew wasn’t real. Digging into defensive positions and waiting the night out for an enemy we knew would never come. Spending rainy nights in muddy holes, fearing what our leaders might do to us if we fell asleep. Firing machine guns, shooting rifles and launching grenades at little green targets…. All of it was just training ops.…
The United States soldiers in Vietnam experienced a war unlike any other in America’s history. One of the main reasons that this war was so different was that the conditions of the soldiers were so terrible. One soldier described what it was actually like living in Vietnam. “We lived out in the jungle and patrolled three villages. We moved from one village to another all the time. You didn't want to stay in one spot for too long. The enemy would try to find out where we were and try to ambush us. So, usually at about 2 a.m. we started to move around from one village to another” (Alex Ditinno). This man shows how terrible their living conditions are. After having a constant fear of being ambushed, having to sleep in dirty and uncomfortable environments for days, and having to wake up in the middle of the night to leave villages, the soldier’s minds are going to be effected. The average age of a soldier in the war was nineteen years old. Before their brains are even fully developed they experience such atrocities that they grow an enormous hatred inside. The only people that they can bring out that hatred on were the Vietnamese. The enemies were known to the Americans as the…
Saigon, a small city situated in South Vietnam, is where I grew up. It’s not a big city; however, its population has been growing rapidly in the past decade. New immigrants from different part of the country keep coming toward us for higher-paid jobs and modern technologies. Unlike the U.S, Vietnam is not a developed country. We have low standards living condition; some parts of the country even have no electricity; crimes and violations happen frequently because people want to escape from poverty; etc. Growing up in a country consisted of those characteristics, I was taught to be ambitious and to push myself hard enough to reach higher goals. It is the bad condition in my country that harbors my dreams to come to the US and to get access to…
When you are someone’s support system you take on multiple roles that indirectly deteriorate your self preservation. Being a listener or a shoulder to cry on, requires sacrifices that, in the moment, you do not even recognize as imposing. Voluntarily and willingly being there for someone begins with the unwavering doubt that you and your own problems cannot and will not prevail over your person’s immediate crisis. Depending on the duration of your duty, a somewhat selfish thought of inconvenience is bound to surface. But, that wave of retraction is almost always combatted by a riptide of dedication and loyalty that brings you back to sea, where all you can do is tread. In turn, the suppression of self regarding issues regularly comes with a layer of obligation and a sting of bitterness.…
The night of April, 18, 1775 I was abruptly woken up by some random man running through Boston yelling “The British are coming, the British are coming!” I was not very happy of getting less than a hour of sleep. This weird man came through around 10:30 PM and woke everyone in the town from there sleep. At first when I heard him say that phase I did not know what he meant by it. I then gathered with my neighbors outside and was told if I wanted to fight the British I had to sign my name on the books in the city hall later that evening. When I went to that meeting later that night they told me to go home get a pound of bread a flask of water and my gun, and to also get a little rest and when the drums sound go stand on the green. So I went home and rested a little and then said my goodbyes to little Johnny and Benjamin. Until we all heard the drums. I then went with my…
My name is Paul Meadlo and I was entering my 20’s when I was a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War alongside Lieutenant William Calley. When I was first forced into the selective service system, or draft, I expected this war to end within a year or so. However, I now have come to realize that I greatly underestimated the Vietcong as they are much stronger and smarter than we were in the jungles of Vietnam. As the years of fighting went on, every encounter with the Vietcong and the stress knowing death could be around every corner has framed me into the person I am today. However, if there is one experience that is engrained within my memory, it would have to be massacre I helped commit at My Lai. It was 1968 and I was only 22 years old, my…
“You are order to active duty as a member of your reserve component unit for the period indicated unless sooner released or unless extended. Proceed from your current location in sufficient time to report by the date specified. You enter active duty upon reporting to unit home station”. These were the words telling me that I was going to Iraq, to fight and destroy the enemies of the United States of America and face one of my biggest challenges yet. Soon after I received my orders in the mail I had a dilemma, what’s going to happen when I tell my mother and the rest of my family? Have I been taking my family and friends for granted, now that I have this situation in front of me I realize that maybe I should have tried…
I am a Vietnamese student at SFSU. I do not like the bookstore at school because this place is so racist. I have visited many bookstores in the U. S, but there is no place has the most unpleasant staff members like in SFSU’s bookstore.…
I was flown out with only half of my squad left. The bloody attacks that happened in that village were plain awful. We were ambushed by Viet Cong so many times, but we defended against them by teaching the villagers how to fight. The plane ride was long and exhausting. I was so glad to be able to finally come home to my family. When the plane landed, I was so happy to be home, and I thought everyone else would be too. I thought wrong. As my squad got off the plane, we were booed, and spit on, people threw rotten food at us and yelled. The people hated us. After all we did in their honor, they hated us. That hurt me more than anything I'd encountered over there. I lost friends for them, I lost years of my life. I lost everything for those people who were spitting on…
I am a Vietnamese person who has moved to America for about thirteen years, and I did not think that I am going to study art because my family, a Vietnamese tradition family, did not want me to practice in art. In their mind, art is something that is unreal job. They said that artists do not make good salary, and their works become expensive only when the artist passed away. They believe that only doctor, nurse, and lawyer are real job. Therefore, when I told them that I am going to practice art, nobody in my family supports me, and they also ridicule me. I can understand why they ridicule me. It is because they totally don't know what is art. In their mind, they think that art is paint and sculpture, but they have never thought about digital…
With ever story of victory, comes a drowning idea of failure. Throughout our live, these battles are fought, taking not only mental strength, but physical as well. Some of these battles are chosen, while the rest flank from behind. With this in mind, a story of victory must be told, on behalf of my Aunt, Joenell. Her battle took place in April, of 2009, she went to the Suttee Delta hospital, in Antioch California for a doctor’s visit, for fear that something was wrong, during this visit she informed her doctor that she felt a not on her left breast. Soon after, she had a mammogram, and an ultrasound done, revealing three cancerous lumps. As the doctor went into detail, she started to realize the gravity of the situation. For the first time; at the age of 59, she was confronted with the most life threating event she had ever faced. So for a second opinion, she went to the Epic Cancer center, also in Antioch California. Certainly, the last thing anyone would like to hear during a doctor’s visit, she knew there would be some decisions to be made, time to study up.…
They had been coming through the village routinely looking for the Vietcong. They were cruel and would have killed to find their hideouts. I would never give up my own country for an American scum. They can search all they want but they will never find them. No one here is willing to help them. We were fine until they came from the skies and the seas with their guns and tanks to take away our liberty. We fear going outside in fear that we may be shot by the Americans for hiding Vietcong and NVA. Since, food is something many can no longer afford or grow as the fields are stricken with American land bombs.…