Essay On Military Experience

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An opinion is the formulation of personal experiences. After my four year career in the U.S Army, I can officially profess that I am one combat veteran out of very few. During my time on active duty it was constantly mentioned how only one percent of the nation’s population serves in the military. In stark contrast, the U.S has one of the best military defense yet only attracts one percent of its citizens. There must be reason for this, which led me to revise my priorities during my tour. Living in the lifestyle of a U.S soldier molded my perception on what is truly important, which is education. Education is a tool that may enable a person (such as I) to jump through the hoops of generational poverty into a life of stability. This is a component …show more content…

I did my time, went to war, and was fed up with the redundant life of being a grunt. Yet, my superiors did not seem to empathize with my situation enough to agree with my career change. Anytime a soldier expressed their goals or dreams for when they discharge from the military they’re quickly countered with, “I bet I will see you working at McDonalds one day.” These statements were endless and this is the mentality that we were trained to believe. The dependence of the military is the same as the need for the commonness of the cave in Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave. In Plato’s essay he writes his account of Socrates conversation with Glaucon about humans who are imprisoned in a cave, which symbolizes ignorance. The escaping of the cave is symbolic of the man for attaining knowledge or enlightenment. He writes, “any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck around will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows” (284). This is the same as soldiers trying to leave the military and fear what will happen since they will not have the financial support they once had. Yet, their words were lines of motivation to my ears, so I started a new path to satiate my hunger for

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