Undergraduate / The future of our society and foreign policy: UT Austin, Important Issue [4]

I appreciate all the help on my previous essay. Unfortunately, I must write two. :(
I had no idea what to write. Frankly, this why I am a physics major, but I decided to do something I had just finished discussing with a friend. Too much history? Last essay, so I wait eagerly for a reply. ;)

Prompt:

Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.

Important Issues:

In 1978, an obscure landlocked country in south-central Asia experienced a successful uprising dubbed the Saur Revolution. Known for its mountainous terrain and historical placing on the Silver Road, the country had been isolated and had played little to no part in international affairs since early in the nineteenth century. Under the new government, the state underwent sweeping reforms in an effort to modernize their economy and social structures. These reforms included widespread literacy and education programs, the abolishment of forced marriage and the prohibition of gender discrimination, agrarian land redistribution and debt relinquishment, and emphasis of secular societal values. In a nation once plagued by oppressive feudal traditions, the liberation of culture had allowed many men and women to adopt contemporary hairstyles and clothing, while the modernized economy allowed an improved public infrastructure and an increased availability of contemporary technology. Today, most Americans cannot identify this country on a map. However, they are well aware of its fate and hear of its name daily. It is the country of Afghanistan. Currently, the United States of America is funneling thousands of lives and dollars into a war to suppress terrorism and stabilize the region, and as of June 7, 2010, it has surpassed the Vietnam War as the longest military engagement in which our country has participated. We are arriving at point in time that my generation must ask whether we should continue in this war, which experts contend is far from ending, or scale back operations. I do not claim to know the answer to this matter, but it undoubtedly is an important and insightful issue for my generation to inquire. By exploring the history of this conflict and the conflict's impact on the present, my peers and I can learn a great deal about the consequences of certain political actions, and we can reflect on what concepts, if any, are worth blood and money.

What brought the fall of Afghanistan after a relatively promising series of improvements leading into the eighties? The answer is primarily the Cold War. The group of intellectuals that led the Saur Revolution believed in a Marxist-Leninist form of government, and though the Soviet Union did not overtly assist the upheaval, the newly formed communist government asked for Soviet assistance in their reformations. Following its Containment Policy, the United States reacted by sending weapons and supplies to exiled religious zealots, disenfranchised by extreme cultural reforms, in an effort to thwart the spread of communist ideology. These American-backed groups became powerful enough to plummet the fragile new country into civil war and force the Soviets to aid their allies. Eventually, the Soviet Union, facing empty federal coffers and a frustrating foreign-backed insurgency, pulled out of Afghanistan, and a few years later, the government collapsed. The country devolved into a Taliban-ruled, theocratic, fascist state that fostered religious extremists such as Al-Qaeda. As my generation reflects on this moment in history, we must question the mindset of the Cold War and perhaps realize its futility. Was Afghanistan better off under the supposed evils of communism? Did we doom the Afghan people and ultimately ourselves? After examining the history behind our current predicament, we must hope to make improved decisions and to avoid these follies in the future.

We all want resolution. We all want peace. What is the price of abrupt withdrawal in Afghanistan? I do not want theocratic fascism to regain a foothold in this region or any region of the world. I do not want death. Nevertheless, if we desire to stomp out this injustice, then perhaps, we must use force. My peers and I must ask what ideas are worth fighting for, if any. If we choose not to fight for the liberation of a people, then perhaps there is nothing worth aggressive military action. It is the answers my generation gives to this issue that will shape the future of our society and the future of foreign policy.

Undergraduate / Concerning Transfer Admission to University of Texas: Statement of Purpose Essay [5]

So, I plan to transfer to UT Austin this coming Spring semester, and well, I am just horrible at these non-analytical types of essays. I would appreciate it if you could offer some tips. Also, do you think it sounds too contrived and pretentious?

Statement of Purpose Essay:

I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

--Carl Sagan, Cosmos (1980), p.4

What I yearn for is the treasures of knowledge. What I yearn for is the ability to discover what the threads of reality consist of. What I yearn for is access to the naturalistic wonders of the vast Cosmos above me. I am a naked ape that strives to know its surroundings, as well as what lies beyond them, and to know of that which intuition fails explicitly to reveal. As an applicant for admission to the University of Texas, I am an inquisitive voyager that seeks passage.

I was born in 1990 to a short, Jewish sailor of the U.S. Navy, hailing from Long Island, and a shorter Mexican-American woman from a small town in South Texas. From then on, my life has been, at least from the perspective of the guy living it, relatively mundane. I was merely a kid of the nineties, from Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, and Pokemon, to Web 2.0 and MP3 digital music players.

However, being the child of a sailor and his maiden meant frequent moving and six month naval deployments that left me temporarily father-less. Although my life began on the emerald coast of Texas, I left at the age of two to the orange tropics of Florida. I made my way to the seasonal, historic ports of Maryland, then the southern coastal marshes of Mississippi, until finally establishing permanent residence back in my place of birth. Reflecting on my time as an involuntary transient, I find satisfaction in my experiences among various regional social settings and in the learned ability to adapt to new environments.

If there was one constant in the equation of my life at the time, it was that school and academic endeavor came easily to me, and I often received honorary recognition. However, by high school, merely learning for the sake of learning was no longer a valid and effective motivation. I excitedly participated in as many advanced placement classes I could, but I found myself doing only enough work to get by. By senior year, I looked with bewilderment at my future. I was lost in intention and filled with existential woe. What was I to do with my life? What was worth doing? What is it to exist?

Eventually, our narrator found solace in the laws physics and the wonders of cosmology. Reading authors such as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he began to perceive the universe as an incomprehensibly complex, yet beautiful, puzzle. The universe was a mystery that our species had just awoken to and begun to decipher. Inspired by the great scientists and popularizes of science of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, he identified what he wanted to pursue. He wanted to gain a fundamental understanding of the vastness in which Earth floats "like a mote of dust". He wanted to pursue physics and space science.

Now, as I imagine transcending the parameters of three-dimensional space and examining the vector that represents my life, I see ahead of my current position, an arduous, but hopefully fulfilling, journey. My goal is to change the future through scientific pursuit and to help advance man's collective understanding of the universe.

Eh, that's it.