Why I Should Join The Army

In Preparation for this paper I searched my memories and even scrolled through my Facebook feed looking for events that really changed who I was as a person and only one or two events stood out. Throughout life we are often presented with opportunities and with those opportunities come choices. As Dumbledore says to Harry Potter: “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities” (Rowling). I haven’t been blessed with a great ability but I have been blessed with the ability to make a choice. This paper will show how my choice to join the Army and the experiences that followed would shape who I am still in the process of becoming today.

I grew up in a small town in Virginia, we didn’t have much but I had a few great men in my life that led by example. My grandfather, uncle, and other men in my family have been in the military and told their stories to me while I was growing up. This put the idea in my mind, albeit an incomplete idea, to join the military. I didn’t quite realize then that their stories were only part of what the military would offer me, but I knew that they were proud of what they were able to accomplish and I wanted to feel that way as well. However, as I grew up my opinions fluctuated and when I finished High School I went on to an Electrician Vocational Program. My professor in the program passed away shortly before graduation and I was not able to get my degree, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to life. Rather than spend another semester to finish my last class I decided that this was not what I really wanted to do. I made the preemptive choice to join the military.

I wasn’t sure what branch of the military I wanted to go into. My grandfather was in the Army, bu...

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...in the Army and I knew that my life would never be the same; I just was not sure how much. That day set me on a course that opened my eyes to the kind of person I could be: a friend, a brother, a soldier, and a man capable of making this world a better place. That day I chose to be part of something bigger than myself. I would never regret that decision even now, with all of the mental and physical degradation I’ve endured.

After that day my life was on a course that I couldn’t change but would definitely change me. The things I went through in the Army have made me the kind of person that I was hoping to be. It also left me slightly bitter and with a different view of racism, patriotism, and this country than I had ever had before. The Army shaped who I am today and despite the flaws I obtained, I grew up and became a man that is proud to have served his country.