This year, students responded to the prompt below. Some wrote an as-told-to account in the voice of the person they interviewed. Others wrote it from their own perspective.
"Choose someone you love, respect, or are just interested in learning more about, and ask him or her to tell you a story. Specifically, your question for them is this: Tell me about a moment when a place made a big impression on you, when it did something to shape the person you are today."
By Donovan Fortune
So far we've managed to not lose anyone. I mean people have been sent home, but no one has been KIA, and hopefully no one will be. When I enlisted, I never thought the war would be like this. All the propaganda that I've heard before signing up made it sound like a great adventure, like it was our time to go on a great crusade like our fathers before us and their fathers before them. We've been told stories about how they rode in on boats into Normandy and charged over the trenches in the Somme. They told us that these were glorious, that these were the greatest moments in there lives. But what they didn't tell us was the actual stories, the actual events that took place, the actual things that they saw. What they didn't tell us was that when they got off the boats, they were mowed down like they were paper, that the machine guns in the bunkers cut through them like a hot knife through butter. What they didn’t tell you is how the war affected them. What it did to them, that's what they didn’t tell you.
So far we’ve done patrol after patrol, march after march, meet-and-greet after meet, and so far nothing has happened. This is all we’ve ever done since we got here is walk into a village, meet the locals, and talk to the village elder. The few times we got engaged it was one or two guys, five at the most. The first engagement that we ever got into we were just walking along a dirt path on our way to a village deep in the jungle when all of a sudden I heard a crack. Then it sounded like really loud, like an angry mosquito went hissing past my head. I don’t remember much, but it happened so fast that it was all a blur. I remember our point man falling backwards and him hitting the ground. As soon as he hit the ground the forest in front of us lit up like a Christmas tree. Instinctively we all dove for the ground and started to return fire. The corpsman crawled up faster than I ever knew anyone could crawl before. He reached the point man, who at this point was rolling from side to side clutching his chest. The corpsman started to pull him back behind a fallen tree that at this point had a machine gun laying down suppressing fire on the forest. Slowly the fire from the forest had started to die down, eventually becoming silent. The corpsman looked at the point man and started chuckling. We all looked at him confused, and he then said, “It’s okay, man. It went straight through. It went straight through.”
When it came time for us to leave, many of the guys I remembered from basic were not with me. They had either been sent home early or transferred out. I was lucky in that my unit only had five KIA total in our tour of duty, and none of them had been from my platoon. I get asked if it was worth it. I always give them the same answer. Was it worth it? No. Would I do it all over again? Yes. This always confuses them, and I even confuse myself with that answer. Even to this day I still don’t understand why I would.
"Choose someone you love, respect, or are just interested in learning more about, and ask him or her to tell you a story. Specifically, your question for them is this: Tell me about a moment when a place made a big impression on you, when it did something to shape the person you are today."
By Donovan Fortune
So far we've managed to not lose anyone. I mean people have been sent home, but no one has been KIA, and hopefully no one will be. When I enlisted, I never thought the war would be like this. All the propaganda that I've heard before signing up made it sound like a great adventure, like it was our time to go on a great crusade like our fathers before us and their fathers before them. We've been told stories about how they rode in on boats into Normandy and charged over the trenches in the Somme. They told us that these were glorious, that these were the greatest moments in there lives. But what they didn't tell us was the actual stories, the actual events that took place, the actual things that they saw. What they didn't tell us was that when they got off the boats, they were mowed down like they were paper, that the machine guns in the bunkers cut through them like a hot knife through butter. What they didn’t tell you is how the war affected them. What it did to them, that's what they didn’t tell you.
So far we’ve done patrol after patrol, march after march, meet-and-greet after meet, and so far nothing has happened. This is all we’ve ever done since we got here is walk into a village, meet the locals, and talk to the village elder. The few times we got engaged it was one or two guys, five at the most. The first engagement that we ever got into we were just walking along a dirt path on our way to a village deep in the jungle when all of a sudden I heard a crack. Then it sounded like really loud, like an angry mosquito went hissing past my head. I don’t remember much, but it happened so fast that it was all a blur. I remember our point man falling backwards and him hitting the ground. As soon as he hit the ground the forest in front of us lit up like a Christmas tree. Instinctively we all dove for the ground and started to return fire. The corpsman crawled up faster than I ever knew anyone could crawl before. He reached the point man, who at this point was rolling from side to side clutching his chest. The corpsman started to pull him back behind a fallen tree that at this point had a machine gun laying down suppressing fire on the forest. Slowly the fire from the forest had started to die down, eventually becoming silent. The corpsman looked at the point man and started chuckling. We all looked at him confused, and he then said, “It’s okay, man. It went straight through. It went straight through.”
When it came time for us to leave, many of the guys I remembered from basic were not with me. They had either been sent home early or transferred out. I was lucky in that my unit only had five KIA total in our tour of duty, and none of them had been from my platoon. I get asked if it was worth it. I always give them the same answer. Was it worth it? No. Would I do it all over again? Yes. This always confuses them, and I even confuse myself with that answer. Even to this day I still don’t understand why I would.
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