NARRATIVE NONFICTION
MY DEFINING MOMENT
My father was one his way to a high school reunion up in New York City. He was driving on Interstate 95 Northbound. When he got around the Washington, D.C. area, a Fauquier County Sheriff pulled him over for "RECKLESS DRIVING". Here was the first of several "God moments", that he did not hit anyone or kill anyone, including himself. So, the sheriff pulled him over and first asked my father if he had been drinking, my father answered no. Then the sheriff administered a Field Sobriety Test, the test that cops use to determine if someone is drunk or sober. When my father failed portions of the test, the sheriff realized that something else was wrong with my father. So, the sheriff called for an ambulance, which came and then took my father to a local hospital. It was then that the following phone call quote was told to my mother: "HE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT." Once my father arrived at the local hospital, the hospital realized that their trauma facilities could not help my father, so they airlifted him to the IHC Center in Washington, D.C. It was then that they called my mother and said the quote above. So, my mom immediately went up to D.C. and a friend of ours came over and stayed with me. At this point, we did not know how serious it was. After the first MRI, the doctors found out that my father had a brain tumor. They operated on it, and removed it. This was repeated several times over his final months of life. A while after the first surgery, we found out that the tumor was cancerous. It was then that we knew that he would not make it to my graduation, which was the hope. The happy part of all of this is that my father defied what the doctors had established as the average life span with this type of tumor. This is the second "God moment",that he live longer than expected. He lived 9 months, the average life span that the doctors had established was 6 months.
The sad part is that yes, he did eventually die, and that was on June 11, 2012, at about 12:20 a.m. He is currently buried in Arlington National Cemetery, facing the United States Air Force Memorial. He served over 30 years of unconditional service to our nation's air force. Flying the F-111 Aardvark with numerous squadrons. He had flown all over the world, from Puerto Rico to Hawaii to The Azores to Alaska to South Carolina and other places that I don't remember. The highest medal that he earned was The Defense Meritorious Service Award, which is awarded in the name of the Secretary of Defense to members of the Armed Forces who, while serving in a joint activity, distinguish themselves by non-combat outstanding achievement or meritorious service, but not of a degree to warrant award of the Defense Superior Service Medal.
Today, I have all of his patches, medals, ribbons, flight scarves, flight jackets, flight suits, rain jackets, BDU's (Battle Dress Uniform), and everything else that the Air Force gives you while in the service. BDU's are the camouflage pants that you will commonly see armed forces members wearing if they fight in the jungle areas. I am currently using what was his work backpack as my school backpack because it is a really good backpack. Why is it a great backpack? Because it has over 20 total compartments, it can hold a lot of stuff, and it has a specially designed and extra padded slot for a laptop or personal computer.
On it I do wear some of his medals in honor of him. I, along with some other NJROTC cadets, wear our past ranks on it. I also have a couple of JROTC bars and Official US Navy ROTC Fouled Anchors on it. The biggest thing of his that I own is his 2006 FORD F-150 Pickup Truck. Currently, I cannot legally drive it, but once I get my driver's license, I will drive it as much as I can.
RESPONSE TO A TEXT
Is The World Going Nuts?
Do you agree or disagree with the authors point on this issue?
I agreed with the author that the world is going nuts. Why? I know that this might sound silly and dumb, but my first reason is because Donald Trump is running for president, a position that I feel is not for him. There are several real reasons that I can and will list: Since Obama became president, we have had more mass shootings that before, which means that we need to crackdown on gun violence; 2 We are spending more money on fighting with ISIS than we should be, what I say that we should do is drop a couple of Nuclear Bombs on ISIS. 3 Obamacare is not worth it. We need to pay more attention to our military veterans and make sure that they have homes. I say a post on G-MAIL that said that the amount of money that we spend on fighting ISIS could buy over 500,000 veterans a very nice home to stay in. 3. The US Military has been and still is receiving budget cuts. We need to stop spending money in other places and focus on our own issues here at home. Of course there are other reasons that I could list, if I did, they would probably take up at least a page. There are also other reasons that may be inappropriate and possibly offensive to others that if I were to list, I might get suspended or expelled from school.
Is The World Going Nuts?
Do you agree or disagree with the authors point on this issue?
I agreed with the author that the world is going nuts. Why? I know that this might sound silly and dumb, but my first reason is because Donald Trump is running for president, a position that I feel is not for him. There are several real reasons that I can and will list: Since Obama became president, we have had more mass shootings that before, which means that we need to crackdown on gun violence; 2 We are spending more money on fighting with ISIS than we should be, what I say that we should do is drop a couple of Nuclear Bombs on ISIS. 3 Obamacare is not worth it. We need to pay more attention to our military veterans and make sure that they have homes. I say a post on G-MAIL that said that the amount of money that we spend on fighting ISIS could buy over 500,000 veterans a very nice home to stay in. 3. The US Military has been and still is receiving budget cuts. We need to stop spending money in other places and focus on our own issues here at home. Of course there are other reasons that I could list, if I did, they would probably take up at least a page. There are also other reasons that may be inappropriate and possibly offensive to others that if I were to list, I might get suspended or expelled from school.
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The questions for the video are as follows:
1. What are your views on America? 2. How can we end gun violence? 3. What American symbols do you most identify with? 4. What do you do to celebrate the 4th of July? 5. Do you think we should build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants? |
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