Why I want to attend the Air Force Academy - international admission program

Hello, English is not my first language and I'm from Kazakhstan. Currently I'm a candidate for an appointment into US Air Force Academy's international admission program. I'm sure I made a lot of grammar mistakes. Also, this is the first time I wrote something important. I have been brainstorming for a month now, and this what I came up with yesterday. Any feedback would be much appreciated. Please help, thank you very much for your time :D

1. When did you first become interested in the Air Force Academy and serving in the Air Force? What started your interest? What Air Force career field do you hope to enter? What do you expect to gain from the Air Force Academy experience and how will it help you in your Air Force career? (250 to 300 words, 3000 characters max)

I got seriously interested in military career and lifestyle after watching a presentation held in my hometown about an opportunity to study in one of the US Service Academies by Lieutenant Colonel David Bennett on 26th of September 2011. Before that, I was confused. Although my great-grandfather and grandfather both were in WW2, and my father who served in Soviet Army as a conscript; didn't share much of the experiences that he knows of his father and grandfather, and didn't pass any meaningful knowledge about being in military that could ignite an eager interest in me. And whenever I approached him with thoughts about joining the army, he would always protest and tell me, that it is a bad idea. And after my friends and cousins who served in my country's army as consripts shared their experience, which was mostly negative, I concluded that they didn't have an overall good experience being there, and so I deemed it as a waste of time.

But (or And?) after that presentation and making an acquaintance with Alt. Col David Bennett, I've learned what US Service Academies offer. And what they offer was what I've always desired, building a strong character, moral, mental and physical foundation. But I failed my first opportunity for an appointment. Because I gave in to prejudices and opinions about me being a military of those around me, which hindered my confidence and got me confused again. Which resulted in very poor performance in application process.

Today, It's clear to me. I want to become the strongest version of myself and develop a character that will not possibly break at any given circumstance. And to achieve that, I need an uncomfortable and stressful environment that is constantly challenging. It is very hard to find or create such an environment living as a civilian, with the main obstacle of plentiful distractions of a daily life. I want to truly understand character virtues and embed them into my consciousness. And the only way to learn them, is through practice. It is almost impossible to do so in today's saturated and egotistic society.

And the only source of becoming the strongest version of oneself available to me is becoming a cadet of US Air Force Academy, a place of great honor. I hope to enter a computer science field, and later try myself in biology, neuroscience and robotics. I expect from Air Force Academy to make me a better man, bounded in service to the people.

Although both my great-grandfather and grandfather were in WW2 - I think that the word "both" should be in this place :)

he would always protest and tell me, that it is a bad idea. -> he had always protested and told me that it had been a bad idea. (without comma)

I think that there should be the Past Perfect or Present Perfect because you're talking about the past. Morever, I would use there Reported Speech.

I don't know if I'm right but I wanted to help you :)

Thank you very much for your help Respina :D

To other members of EssayForum:
And I forgot to mention in the thread. Does this essay respond to the questions correctly? What parts are irrelevant to the questions? What should I remove or replace with? Thank YOU!!

I wish you expressed this incident more lively :)
I still remember the day, 26th Sept 2011, on which I watched Lieutenant Colonel David Bennett making his presentation in our hometown on the topic, "an opportunity to study in US Service Academies". That was the advent of my keen interest in a military career and lifestyle.


... You can even consider taking this line off.... You can say this after the next couple of lines :)


Although my great grandfather and grandfather both fought in WW2 and my father served in the Soviet Army as a conscript, none of them inspired me to take up a military career. In fact my father always discouraged me whenever I wanted to consider a military career telling me that it is a bad idea.