Undergraduate /
'raised in a world of war' - Texas application essay influential person [4]
Write an essay in which you tell us about someone who has made an impact on your life and explain how and why this person is important to you.
I was raised in a world of war-with Fort Hood approximately an hour away and the Waco Veterans Hospital just miles from my home, I have been surrounded by war for nearly a decade. Growing up, security helicopters flying to and from President Bush's ranch served as a resounding reminder of combat, while Cindy Sheehan's protests were an avid reminder of the political turmoil surrounding war. But despite my apparent familiarity with the subject, war has always been a distant reality for me, for my experience with war has been primarily through soldiers' families. So until recently, I have considered the effects of PTSD on veterans.
The last place I expected to meet a soldier was at a church program; not because my church is opposed to war, but because the size of the program (a combination of children and youth) was fairly small-typically eight to ten in Sunday School and six to eight on Sunday and Wednesday nights. When I entered this program in the fifth grade, Nick was already a senior (and anticipating his deployment to either Iraq or Afghanistan), but in our year together, Nick proved himself a true friend to all in the program. His thoughtful words, steady compassion, and quick wit entertained the young and the old. And when, sometime in the spring of that year, it was announced that the daughter of a member of our church had committed suicide, it was Nick's gentle manner and willingness to approach the subject that helped the rest of the group confront the situation as well.
It came as no surprise when Nick joined the Marines after graduating from a local magnet school. He left for Iraq that fall, and I didn't see much of him after his departure. Nick visited Lake Shore about once a year, but those visits were brief, to say the least. He was always distant during these visits; however, I didn't realize the impact of the war on Nick until this fall, when he committed suicide.
This year, our AP English analysis of WWI poet and soldier Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" has been more than applicable to this situation. Owen immediately drew me to the irony of war: that the people who support war don't always understand what the troops experience. I remember being especially unsettled by the lines, "In all my dreams before my helpless sight/He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning." These lines have since led me to consider not only the political and physical effects, but also the emotional effects of war on its veterans, for it is, as Owen said, these "innocent tongues," individuals like Nick, who are often the most challenged-and changed-by war.
The poem ultimately presented the irony of my own experience with war-although I live so close to the trappings of war, before reading "Dulce et Decorum Est" I was unaware of war's emotional effects on its veterans. The "smothering dreams," "hanging face," and "incurable sores" of Owen's soldiers have since made me reconsider my reality of war: media images of veterans tearfully returning to their wives and children now encourage me to see war through the eyes of soldiers such as Nick, for I am aware that the emotional effects of war on soldiers are not always visibly recognizable.
