What this tells us about life is people that doubt you will sometimes never be somewhere in life. For example In the Sonia Sotomayor novel it's explaining how Sonia grew up in a different kind of neighborhood and today she is more and a successful lady. In the “The Road Not Taken” the Narrator took the road that is less traveled by and maybe when he took that road it could of changed his whole life into something good or bad but the more important thing is he took a difficult decision. The roads that were given to Sonia were good and perfect colleges and she believed that schools in the poor neighborhoods made progress since she was in the fifth grade.
Growing up in Iraq in the era between the gulf war, Iran war, and Iraq war with the United state was a challenge for me, but it was not harder challenge than all what my parents went through to keep me and my siblings safe and sound. My mother is one of the strongest people that I have came cross in my life. She was and still the best mother, teacher, and my best friend. She graduated from Al Mosul University in Iraq as a Mechanical Engineer. Being a daughter of graduated mother will always push me to complete my education and go even further to earn my master degree too.
It is 1965 and the Vietnam War is at its height, on November 14 the enemy had launched a surprise attack on a U.S. special forces at Plei Pe with many casualties it was my duty as a medic to go get those men. The United States had ordered an immediate counter attack. On our way to the base I had gotten butterfly’s in my stomach and felt like wanted to throw up. We were dropped of six miles away from the base so the helicopters wouldn't be shot down an make a safe trip back. Our march began to the base when only an hour hour later someone had fell into a tiger pit being impaled by several sharp rods covered in a horrible smelling substance.
In my life I have faced some extremely trying experiences and, from them, learned some very valuable lessons. My father, SPC Theodore “TJ” Ingemanson, an Iraq War Veteran and Wounded Warrior, passed unexpectedly, from injuries he suffered during his deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was twelve years old. Two months after this devastating event, my mother was sent to prison for choices she made that impacted our lives in a negative way. Life, as I knew it, became a chaotic tailspin, changing rapidly and drastically.
One of the reasons I would like to be a wreath layer is because my grandpa was in the Korean War. When he was 21, he went to military training in Blackstone, Virginia. He then left from Seattle on a boat on a two week journey to Japan. All of the guys on the boat would be sick by the time they got to Japan. He then had more training in Japan for about four more weeks.
Entering the once lonely house, there was a family rejoicing with a long-gone relative. As striking as the first rose in spring, her silky, soft, shiny hair combined with her enticingly exquisite eyes: producing a sublime look. Her upturned nose, oval face and elegant cheeks exhilarated hope within anyone in sight; she filled a void that could only be filled by her. Instantly ejecting any ridicule of the family, her presence made the household regain its original nobility. Spiralling into circle after circle on the indigo walls, like an optical illusion, numerous twirling lines were being contained in a plethora of thin liable cracks; suggesting, this house is enriched in Pangaea-old traditions.
Loud noises seemed to scare me, I have no idea why but screeching tires, Revving engines, screaming children, and even the occasional barking dog will get me on edge and paranoid. In my younger years I joined the US Air Force as a way to get away from everyday life, I just wanted to get out of the everyday monotony of work, sleep, wake, repeat. The only thing that brought me any kind of variety was my sweetheart back home, Hazel. We met in high school when I was just 17 years of age, somehow we are still together today through the night terrors and struggles I constantly suffer.
“The rumbling of the trucks was the first thing I heard in the morning. Then some shouting, but it was still muffled. Mama had ran to where I lay on the cot under the burlap blanket she had made. She started yelling, which she never does. Aus dem Bett aufstehen!
When the sudden and startling gasps started to arise, in a split second, the feeling of warmness on my skin became as cold and chilly as a popsicle fresh from the freezer. I had no perspective of what was happening, but it didn’t take long to realize what was about to go down. Precisely when the gasps had begun, the jerking also came. Back and forth, back and forth the bus went. The good news was that my bulging bag had stopped me from slamming into the seat ahead and cushioning the impact for me, for I was not wearing a seatbelt.
I’ve felt a lot of pain in my life. Physical pain, Mental pain. Just, pain! I have suffered with anxiety, I have had sleep troubles, I have grieved. But I can imagine the pain, or sorrow, confusion or despair that lurks out there on the battlefield.
It took 250$ and good deeds to create some doctor like me. Growing up I was the kid who looked at the world with open optimistic eyes. I grew up in a small city called Dora located in Iraq, the middle of three girls. I was born in the late 90s, I have been told that I was born "at the end of the good days". That's when Iraq's political circumstances were not at peace at all, at 2003 another war broke in Iraq.
Well, I’ll start my story off the day I returned from Afghanistan in July 2013. The moment I stepped off the plane I knew that those longs days and nights in Afghanistan were finally over and I could relax again. Thats exactly what I tried to do for the next month or so but I was still having trouble.
Being a military brat means there is never stability in you home because you could move across the country any time, or your parent could come home one day and say they are deploying soon. As a military kid you really don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, yes I have been lucky, I was born in Hawaii, and have lived in a number of states including: Texas, Oklahoma, California, and Wisconsin. I was lucky because when I was alive none of my parents were deployed but even then sometimes it felt like they were because they would work super late and then early and I would get to see them maybe once every couple of days. It’s not just that though, as a military kid you never have the same friends for more than a couple years, yes you stay in touch with them after you move but a lot of the times when you say goodbye
The year was June 23rd, 1968. It was wet, mucky, and the air was filled with a thick sweat that seemed to never dissipate. We were in the middle of thick, green, tropical jungle in Saigon, Vietnam. Me and my friend Carlton were in a platoon of 6 other men. We were sitting there smoking our cigarettes and telling old stories of the good old days when were back in America.
It's viciously cold, people are sick, hunger is spreading across all two thousand huts, and that’s just the beginning. Further on, I hear gunshots being fired while soldiers are marching. Its 1777 and the Revolutionary War just started and soldiers are already retreating. I stay here and protect the soldiers from enemies while disease, hunger, and cold spread. I know why I was made and how I will serve - sheltering these warriors is the most important objective I will do.
