At the end of my sophomore year, I signed up for a conversation group to see how it would be like to be in the forest for 5 weeks with complete strangers.When I arrived to the camp in Leavenworth, Washington I was scared and excited at the same time, it was a weird feeling to have.When I saw my Mom and Dad left me at the camp I knew I was now all alone with complete strangers that I have only met for 15 minutes.I felt alone, lost, scared that I would be here in washington with complete strangers but, it wasn’t hard because everyone at the camp was nice and helpful with meeting everyone. The next day we were separated into groups there was orange crew, blue crew, yellow cew, red crew, and rainbow crew. I was apart of the orange crew and we were …show more content…
I was so scared but I was able to stand on my two feet and walk myself back to the van where I sat down for an hour and went back to work.The 2nd week was not too bad, I was back in my own state of Oregon at Bonneville Dam. The work was tedious and difficult because we had to cut down a plant named false indigo with dull clippers and while standing on unstable rocks while near the columbia river. The 3rd week we went back to ColVille to work on keeping wildfires under control. It was hard for our crew because we lost one of our members and lost one of our crew leaders but we kept under control and kept going on with our work for the week.4th week we went to wenatchee National forest so it wasn’t a far drive but the work was very difficult because we had to use mostly rock bars and then use sledgehammers to get the rocks out. During this week something bad happened one of the crew that was with us lost a member during a day of the week and we were so scared for her safety so the next day we didn’t work we just packed up our stuff and then went to the search and rescue group so we can give the last known
After making the difficult decision of moving out from a school I called home and attended since Kindergarten, my freshman year in a new environment made for a rocky start. I fell into the wrong crowd, tried getting out, but kept making bad decisions, which eventually led to a deep depression. My dreams I had as a child were fading before my eyes, and negative thoughts consumed my mind. I started to believe that I had no purpose and could never amount to anything, but the four days at Camp Barnabas in Missouri changed the course of my entire life. This experience was important to me and helped sculpt me into the person I am today.
“Pow!” shellings and canyons being fired. I was awoken by an unpleasant sound. Little Susan was arise and shine early to go get some crops. We both did our daily routine of praying that our parents are in good health in heaven.
“The worse part about serving in this war wasn’t the blood shed or fighting in general, but how we were abused. I left Josiah but thanks to poor filing and lack of care for those serving I not only lost my abilities, I lost my name.” The strongest and most horrifying statement that left Joe’s mouth during our interview. Prior to our interview I have had the honor of being Joe’s tech tutor for the past two months, from time to time he would come trying to learn some basic computer skills now that the campus is going mostly digital. He’s a season veteran who served in the Ghost battalion in Southern Laos being some of the first people to enter the war, even before the US advisors, sent on secret missions for the US Marine Corps.
Growing up in Marin I had very few worries; each night my mom would prepare a warm meal and I always had a safe place to sleep at night. After 13 years of living this way such luxuries became so normal to me that I was under the impression that everybody lived this way. Along with me on this trip was a boy named Noe, a well groomed caucasian kid who seemed to be not much older than I was. From what knowledge I had of my life back home I assumed that the structure of his life would be very similar to mine; growing up with a loving family and nothing more to worry about than how quickly he could get his homework done before going out with friends after school. I remained under this impression for the first week of the trip and it wasn’t until one night around the campfire as a group that I learned the truth about Noe. Since the beginning of the trip the rest of the students and I had become a tightly knit group of people who worked well together and had gained one another trust. While sitting around the fire the topic of our lives back home started being discussed and it wasn't long before Noe jumped in the conversation. As a group we learned that Noe had spent his childhood living foster home to foster home and had no existing relatives other than an Aunt suffering from Alzheimer’s.
I stepped onto the strange campus that I would call home for the next six weeks. My duffel bag stuffed with clothes, was cutting off the circulation from my arm. I froze, staring at the four story building where I would live. Every worry I had, seeped through my mind in that instant. Being too shy to even order a pizza, I had never really made friends easily. Suddenly, the Upward Bound program at Bowdoin College did not feel like the ideal use of my time that summer. Strangely, at that moment, a smiling face of a friend, my friend, stepped forward and greeted me. She was the only person I knew at the time, so I clung to her. I remember standing around a tree with her and a few of the friends that she already had. I observed their mannerisms
As I gazed out of the small side window of the Bell UH-1 Huey helicopter I was in, I saw complete annihilation. Under us, planes razed a small jungle with their heavy artillery, and the Viet Cong scattered like cockroaches into their hand-dug tunnels. The year was 1960, and my family and I were trying to escape the war and seek refuge in America. The war started 5 years ago, and it was steadily moving to my hometown and Vietnam’s capital, Saigon. My father was in the military, so he got access to a helicopter to take us away before it was too late. Those less fortunate than us had to stay behind and hope for the best. My smaller sister, Lang, squirmed in my arms, a sign that she was hungry. I took a sweet potato out of a large straw bag and
I was kind of confuse with everybody, but my uncle David said once you settle in with everything and everyone you’ll see and I kept this in thoughts. My uncle Hilmi was driving my mom, brothers, and I to my uncle Isaac house since his house was like an American looking house. When we were driving my my mom didn't like the drive because dust was coming all over her face but I was enjoying the ride because this is what I can call life. He wasn't talking to us, but I had a feeling that, that would change, but I kept silent and let my mom do all the talking and me resting after that big trip overseas. We had arrived to this house with a gate and a door in the middle was a garden, I thought it was a little neat and cool but I couldn't wait to get in that bad. In Sudan the temperatures goes over 100 degrees so that night was that night where around 7 the weather was maybe 115 degrees, so my uncle put my brothers, mom, and I in this room with air conditioner, while my dad was adapting to the weather and sleep inside. As soon they had told us this were our beds I jumped in and had to share it with my mom, so my mom had to move my body because I was fast asleep and didn't feel like
My eyes opened very early that morning. I looked out of window and saw beautiful weather outside. It was cold wind. The flowers in my garden were smiling at me. All of a sudden my eyes got watery. I remembered that this was my last day in California. I was going to America early the next day morning with my parents and family. The day was Saturday, 20th December. Tears were running down my face. I went downstairs; everybody in the house was sleeping. They had been packing until late night and I didn't want to them wake them up. Therefore, I went back upstairs. I just started thinking about how I was going to leave my house, my friends, my relatives, and my country. The place where I grew up, the people with whom I had grown up, how I was going to leave without them? It was going to be very hard for me to leave something that I had used to. I took out my album and started looking at pictures with my friends and relatives. I looked at the life that I had enjoyed with them. The moments of happiness and sorrow that we had shared together.
It was a cold morning in Oklahoma, not too cold for a jacket but rather a day where you wish you could stay in the oceans of your warm blanket. The year, 1962; a time of war and unrest between the nations but that never seemed to bother Peter because in his mind he was off to college. The bats went off to sleep while Peter proceeded on with fetching the mail off the icy doorstep. After analyzing all the letters he received, one peculiar piece of mail stood out for youthful peter. Slowly and steadily opening the bright yellow letter his eyes widened and his body stood numb as he read the words, “You have been drafted to serve your country in the Vietnam War”. His world fell silent whilst the sun arose above the frosty trees.
The first nothing happened all we did was sleep because South Dakota is a hour behind Iowa so we slept in all day. The second day we finally went to Mount Rushmore and he went in the afternoon my mom took like a million picture of everything. We took about 8 hours there. When we came back the night we only had three hours there cause we took the bus there. We spent three hours inside because it was mosquito paradise. So we only watched the light up and took a ton of pictures. The last day we spent all day packing up. It still was another 8 - 10 hour drive back to Iowa I fell asleep for 4 hours. When we finally made it to Iowa it was 10:30 PM. I fell asleep right after we made it back to Iowa. So it wasn’t that bad. The trip to South Dakota it was the best thing of my summer.
When I got there I started walking around my home to see who I could play with. I would see kids mostly everywhere and my Mom found out that sometimes kids would go out in the field and play soccer or another sport. My neighbors were all very nice but one ( a few years younger than me) kid kick me in the shins it hurt but otherwise I thought it was fun living here in fort Riley. My Dad kept been mentioning Scouts in family and that when I learned that my neighbors were scouts and my Papa was an Eagle scout. I asked my Mom and Dad "I'll try scouts " I was very jumpy for the next week I probably jumped higher than a kangaroo. Then it was Wednesday the day that I have scouts and then all of a sudden I heard my Mom say scouts is canceled all my excitement dropped I felt as seeing those words on the
When I was seventeen I nervously traveled about 350 miles from my sleepy little home town of Freedom, Wyoming to the relatively enormous city of Boise, Idaho to go to the Military Entrance Processing Station. This wasn 't the first time I had been this far from home by myself, but it was the first time I was making adult decisions without my parents involvement. When it came time for me to choose my job in the army the counselors presented me with a long list that I qualified for. I got tired of scrolling and reading so I chose the first job that I actually understood. I returned home and excitedly told my parents that I would be an infantry soldier. My dad 's response to this might be considered a little less than heart warming “You dumb ass. Why didn 't you choose
One day after school I came home, and my mother was frantically packing, tomorrow was our deadline, we had to be out and the panic had set in. I was scared and very sad. Watching your entire life be condensed into one moving truck is a very difficult experience. It's humbling to say the least. My mother and I didn't sleep that night. From the moment I got home, to 8 pm the following day, we worked, we packed, we loaded, we unloaded, and we cried. Energy drinks and anxiety are all that kept us going. It was hard! Six a.m. rolled around and people started waking up and making their daily commute. Everything was normal to them. I was running around, trying to get everything in order while my world collapsed around me. Everything made me jump! Every truck going
When I had the chance, I should have spent an aggrandize about of time with them. In 2008, my dad and mom decided to take my sister and I to Vietnam so we could visit my mom’s and dad’s family. So my dad took a one month break from work to go to Vietnam. My mom and dad pull my sister and I together and said “We are going to Vietnam.” My sister and I were so excited that we were jumping up and down like kangaroos. A month later, we were all packed and ready to go to Vietnam.
Spring 2012: finals coming up, everyone getting ready for semi, talk of summer plans. Meanwhile I was on my couch recovering from my broken leg (my cast was up to my mid thigh). I had to take a week off of school according to my doctors so I spent a lot of time on my iPad waiting for someone to post something in “8 Green Girls”. Nothing. I was bored out of my mind. When it came time for me to return to school naturally I was excited for all my “friends” to see me again (and for me to see them of course). I arrived and went to my science teacher's room and sat in a wheelchair waiting for friends to visit and keep me company. I think I was only visited by four friends in total. They didn’t even stay to keep me company. They came. They saw. They left. That was it, nothing, it was definitely not what I expected.