Last Chance In The Life Of Wes Moore

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Second chances are not rewarded lightly and third chances are increasingly rare. It is difficult to be able to distinguish between a genuine second chance and when your last chance has been presented before you. When you are granted many second chances, you normalize it. Your attitude becomes nonchalant and you are sure that if you make a mistake, a second chance will fall into your lap. However, life is not that kind and last chances do exist. It is when you squander your last chance, do you realize that you’ve made a definite mistake. The author’s last chance was Valley Forge military school. Initially he resented his mother for her decision to send him away. However, his mother talked with him about how much the family sacrificed in order …show more content…

The environments we live in have an impact on our values and ultimately where we end up in life. I will now refer to Wes Moore, the author, as Moore. I will refer to the “other” Wes Moore as Wes. Moore and Wes may have started in Baltimore City but, only Moore was able to leave to a better environment that attributed to his fate. Moore only moved once while the Wes moved more than 4 times as an adolescent. Moore had a mother who was financially stable enough to move in with her parents in Bronx, NY. He was able to attend a private school before he was sent off to Valley Forge middle school. At Valley Forge he was taught a new set of values that differed from the Bronx norms. A very important relationship was formed at the military school between Moore and Captain Ty Hill. Moore writes, “I had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people. I had seen Shea demand respect in the neighborhood but this was different. This was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people” (p. 96). Now that Moore is in a new environment, his idea of respect shifted from one that was earned with intimidation and the other earned with merit. Moore idolized Captain Ty Hill as he once idolized Shea. As a result, Moore decides that he wants to be just like Captain Ty Hill. While Moore was finishing his years at Valley Forge, he received news that Shea had been arrested on drug charges and was in jail. If Moore’s environment did not change, he could have been in the same predicament as Shea. On the other hand, Wes’s mother Mary, could not afford to move out of state. Instead, she tried her best to keep the kids out of Baltimore city even though the area was always within reach. Wes was moved around repeatedly and he constantly had to readjust to the new environment he was in but, to a certain extent. Wes mainly adjusted to the new

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