The Unforgiving Minute
The Unforgiving Minute
Craig Mullaney definitely made many challenges for himself and accepted challenges from others with no questions asked. Being the thriving Valedictorian of his high school class and earning other prestigious accolades he stood out from the other entire student. But at West Point, Mullaney would be intertwined with hundreds of other classmates with the same, if not more achievements, making it seemingly impossible to be any kind of a predominant student.
Mullaney learned from West Point not only strategies for battle, but also the reasons for someone to go into battle in the first place. Craig came from a strong Catholic upbringing being in a catholic school system where he went to confession routinely, “confessing all of the shortcomings that he faced during the week whatever it was, from losing a wrestling match to missing homework”, that had been taunting his conscience and where he was taught to “sanctify others, seeing even our enemies in the image of god” Now he is being asked to do things that conflict those beliefs immensely, such as running a dummy attacker through with a bayonet, and he starts to question his situation, “ I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a warrior, a professional trained to kill”. So in search of an answer to his question he goes to the Catholic chaplain for better insight. The priest talked to him about believing in a just war, and that “war, although always horrible, is sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil”.
This lesson that Mullaney received from the priest, would better break him in for his future experiences at West Point. But being at West Point strengthened his academics by its uniquely high physical and mental demand. Its demand to be active in a sport in which Craig chose Wrestling gave a harder challenge because of its incredibly strenuous practices and tough competition. Craig was an all state wrestler in high school but in West Point he was inferior to most and had to fight hard to win any
Craig Mullaney definitely made many challenges for himself and accepted challenges from others with no questions asked. Being the thriving Valedictorian of his high school class and earning other prestigious accolades he stood out from the other entire student. But at West Point, Mullaney would be intertwined with hundreds of other classmates with the same, if not more achievements, making it seemingly impossible to be any kind of a predominant student.
Mullaney learned from West Point not only strategies for battle, but also the reasons for someone to go into battle in the first place. Craig came from a strong Catholic upbringing being in a catholic school system where he went to confession routinely, “confessing all of the shortcomings that he faced during the week whatever it was, from losing a wrestling match to missing homework”, that had been taunting his conscience and where he was taught to “sanctify others, seeing even our enemies in the image of god” Now he is being asked to do things that conflict those beliefs immensely, such as running a dummy attacker through with a bayonet, and he starts to question his situation, “ I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be a warrior, a professional trained to kill”. So in search of an answer to his question he goes to the Catholic chaplain for better insight. The priest talked to him about believing in a just war, and that “war, although always horrible, is sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil”.
This lesson that Mullaney received from the priest, would better break him in for his future experiences at West Point. But being at West Point strengthened his academics by its uniquely high physical and mental demand. Its demand to be active in a sport in which Craig chose Wrestling gave a harder challenge because of its incredibly strenuous practices and tough competition. Craig was an all state wrestler in high school but in West Point he was inferior to most and had to fight hard to win any