There are times we find ourselves in situations we could never imagine being, I know for me this was never more of the case than when I deployed to Afghanistan in 2013. Just a year removed from living at home with my parents, I would be deploying to a combat zone. Everything changed for me when I became a driver in a personal security detachment for my unit’s commander, as I originally enlisted to work with communications. The thought of being in combat had never crossed my mind when I initially signed up. One minute I am saying goodbye to my wife, then the next I am landing on a runway in Afghanistan. As a signal soldier I felt so unprepared and under trained for the mission ahead but I wasn’t scared. My platoon sergeant, an Infantryman of …show more content…
This feeling came from the fact that I had missed almost the entire train up process for the deployment due to me getting to my unit just a few months before we were set to leave. I was not the only soldier that arrived late to the unit, in fact several other soldiers arrived at the same time as me or later. With so many of us missing a significant amount of the pre-deployment process, we would have to work even harder and learn at a rapid pace to be ready. We trained for the upcoming mission, learned what our roles would be in the fight, and had the expectations set for what would be expected of us threw out the deployment. The Non Commissioned Officers in my platoon were predominately all seasoned and battle hardened soldiers with combat experience. The majority of the junior enlisted soldiers were support MOSs (Military Occupational Specialty), meaning that we were trained to do jobs that supported the soldiers on the front lines. Support jobs include expertise in communications, medical, and maintenance. We would follow suit to what our Non Commissioned Officers did and the examples they set while filling our new specific roles in the mission. With all things considered, even with the training we did receive the expectations set for a platoon full of untrained and inexperienced soldiers to go out looking for the enemy was pretty low. We were expected to get our commander from point A to point B safely without issue. We did just that and after a while, our mission expanded from just the commander’s personal security detachment, to escorts for other elements and even becoming a quick reaction force. My platoon sergeant was able to use our new found roles to instill even more confidence in all of us, he showed us that we weren’t just accomplishing the mission, but that we were exceeding it. Knowledge of our new found importance to the fight lent heavily into my deployment being the
Accepting risk and the danger that follows can be a daunting task for anyone to bear on their own. Like the soldiers on the battlefield in Vietnam, they understood the risks of enlisting in the military and would soon realize the dangers
Childhood experiences tend to stay within a person 's life, including the ones that have taught you something as valuable as courage. For me, such experience that taught me how to be courageous, as I am presently, took place when I was about the age of 8. I was traveling with my family from one continent to another to reach our desired destination: America. Before, I had lived in the same city for as long as I remembered and knew everyone around me. I knew my whole village in and out like it was at the back of my hand and was comfortable in whatever corner I went. So as one could imagine, a hometown girl, who hasn’t been exposed to any other areas besides her birthplace, planted in an immense airport, in New York City, wouldn’t result pleasantly. When we were waiting for our
When I joined the United States Marine Corps, I knew it would change my life, but I never realized how great those changes would be. I was trained in public affairs as a print and broadcast journalist, and immediately stationed in Okinawa, Japan. Drastic life changes can take a toll both physically and emotionally over time, and it is always important to have a great personal support system to thrive through those times. My senior advisor at the time, Master Gunnery Sgt. (Master Guns) Charles Albrecht, turned out to be one of the best supporters I could ever ask for.
The book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick is an in-depth narrative about the 1st platoon, Bravo Company 1-502nd Infantry 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq in 2005. The leadership failures documented in this book range all the way from the general officer level down to the lowest private. LT general Ricardo Sanchez failed to understand the climate his command group was entering as they were deployed into Iraq. From then on the entire leadership failures continued to compound upon each other with improper time to plan. It is customary to have a six month lead time to have a proper battle hand off when preparing to take over an AO from another unit. To compound this problem, the entire time the 502nd was in pre-deployment training, they were preparing for the rigors of urban combat. In reality, they were given six weeks to recon their new area of responsibility and were going to a countryside crafted by the heavens for guerilla warfare. As Colonel Ebel said in the book, “It is not going to be an easy road. They are not even sure of what they have in the area. It just feels bad. We can expect a real fight.”
In November I had finished my sniper training. There was talk of being sent to Africa to help in the desert campaign during our graduation ceremony. I was never more nervous in my life. It was all becoming real; everything I worked for.
The very first hardship experienced is basic training, although basic training varies across all military branches they all serve the same purpose. Every year more than 180,000 people enlist in the armed (unknown 2014). That is about 180,000 people who had to leave loved ones behind and completely start a new life that may or may not include the ones that they love. Along with leaving loved ones behind there is also the challenge of completing basic training. Once the smoke has settled and all training is complete one can officially call themselves a solider, sailor, marine, or airmen which will officially make the member eligible for deployment operations. Some deployments may be easier than others but there is no doubt that deployments can definitely become a military hardship which can cause negative impact on a service members life. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is one of the most commonly reported psychological outcomes following deployment (Wright, Breanna K., et al. 2013). A military deployment can have a major negative impact on service member’s lives. Deployments can take a toll on a service members personal and professional life which could lead to issues such as depression. The military can have a major negative impact on service member’s lives, however if one remains resilient the fruits of their labor will become
I woke up every morning wishing I was home already. Instead, I woke up to Sergeant Red telling me to get up. He was not the greatest noncommissioned officer (NCO) but he taught me a lot about preparing myself mentally and physically for the worst outcomes. One thing he said that stayed with me was, “Hey man, when it is your time to go then it is your time to go.” Small words but they were honest words. In war you cannot dwell on the mission or any mistakes that you have made. All you can do is learn from them mistakes and try not to make them again. I do not consider myself a hero or superior to everyone else but I do find myself to be determined and dedicated. Every time we were being briefed on the next mission I looked around the room to see if everyone was ok. I looked for that one individual who was deep in his thoughts that he did not even pay attention to the brief. I would pull them to the side afterwards and just have casual conversations with them. Once we laughed and forgot about the mission we would look at each other and know exactly what the other person was thinking. “Are we about to go out there again?”, “Is this my time to go?”, or “Is this going to be the last time I see him?” We did not look at each other as friends; we looked at each other as brothers. Every time we prepared for a mission we helped each other to make sure everyone had the right equipment. We made sure that everyone’s weapon was
Many soldiers can testify to the fact that it is not just training, situations, or regulations that sets us apart from the average person.
Nash (2007) points out that soldiers exposed to combat have predictable fears, such as the fear of death or serious injury and the loss of fellow soldiers. Several studies have found, however, that these expected fears are not as pervasive as those who have not served in combat may expect (Grossman, 2009).
Every American soldier endured rigorous training to become the soldier they are today, but throughout all this training, there are a few things that a soldier can't simply learn. Training and development is treated as preparation for war situations, and much like ordinary grade school, they are tested to see how well each soldier does in each area (Huerta, 2014). Even after all this organizing and teaching, a soldier's mind is still just as human as it was before seeing action in battle. Once a soldier learns to control every situation imaginable, they are sent overseas to put all their training to use; but simulations can only get you so far. At some point, there is a moment when a soldier will step out of his or her body and truly realize how far from home they are, and that the violence of war is just a way of their new daily life. At this point "a soldier is considered dirty" (Phillips, 2014). Although for a soldier this sounds like a step in the right direction in this particular line of work, it's really a step down a dark path, and part of the soldier will never return. Now American soldiers are haunted by the negative psychological effects resulting in the harsh symptoms of PTSD (Posttraumatic stress disorder) as seen in Jarhead's main character Anthony Swofford.
A major life event that started me to pursue an education in nursing was my time in basic training. The most life changing event during my induction into the army at ft. Jackson before starting basic training was accepting Christ as my personal lord and savior. When I decided to go into the Army 4 years out of high school I was a student firefighter E.M.T. working towards my paramedic, incidents at the Dept. I worked at both before and after some traumatic emergency responses actually turned me away from practicing any sort of medicine and causing me to seek the military for a new career or to pay for me to go back to school for another career if the military wasn’t my thing. During Basic training as stated above I was already a licensed E.M.T.
For the purpose of this paper I will be describing a personal life experience and I will be applying concepts from the texts to best describe the event. I was born here in the United States (US) but, I was raised in the Dominican Republic (DR). I lived in the DR basically my entire life, I would only come to the US for vacation during summer. It was not until I turned 12 that I decided to move back to the US to continue my studies and learn the language. So I did, I moved with my uncle and his wife on the summer of 2009. At the time, they resided in the Mayfair area of Philadelphia, PA. My uncle and his wife arranged everything for school and as of August of that year I was officially enrolled in Abraham Lincoln High School. Everything was
According to a 2001 Gallup poll, “more than 40% of Americans fear public speaking than death”, I was shocked to learn this statistics that I was not the only one. As I was pondering about what to write on my essay for my favorite school, I thought about my own childhood experience.
Experiences mold people into who they are destined to become. They teach lesson to the ignorant, inspire the stagnant, and spark the content. A person’s experiences write their past and present, and my experiences wrote a dramatic story. My story begins with a naive child who was blinded by the wicked’s of the world, but one day hell released it’s beast. The beast came in the form of shattering words cracking picture frames and smashing children's hearts. It tore a family into two and transformed this girl into an adult. The beast had hunted her down and handed her the role of a leading her siblings to success. But this evil didn’t gain power over the young child; inside of her it blossomed a caring heart that strived to ease the pain of others
My aspiration toward a better education starts all the way back to when I started school in Russia. Out of the short educational experience that I had in Russia, I remember that almost everybody wanted to be the straight-A student (or straight-"5" by Russian grading). That, combined with the constant pressure from my family helped me get excited about school and made me want to learn. My education in Russia was cut short, however, when we moved to the United States.