A personal experience, about when my dad was deployed to various places with the British Army

Scottish Essay Check

I have only just started this essay and it is of course, nowhere near completed.
I just wanted to double check I was on the right lines; the idea of the essay is to talk about a personal experience, about when my dad was deployed to various places such as Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia etc with the British Army and how this was difficult to cope with.

My plan is to slowly bring in the idea of him being in the army, and the pressure it put on my family, and talk about this gradually, as the essay gets longer.

You will see from the start of the essay I have no laid down the fundamentals or really even mentioned the fact about being in the army, going to get deployed etc.

Is this the right way I should be going with this?
Here's the essay (so far):

One of the biggest challenges I have ever faced was many moons ago, when after a long day at school, I came back to half the life I had just days ago. Half the happiness, half the wealth and half of the enjoyment of sitting in the same room watching TV on a Saturday night drinking tea and eating biscuits, with all three occupants of the household, including myself. Possibly the biggest motivator in my life was no longer a first source of motivation, because they were not there anymore. Of course, they came back, but the period of time that me and my mother were left alone was quite daunting. Constantly moving from Osnabruck, Germany, to Catterick Garrison, North East England and all throughout the rest of the country started to take its toll - but one thing this showed me for certain was that nothing was permanent.

Saying goodbye to my father a day before his departure was a challenging moment, and the question "is he going to come back" came to my attention after I wasn't able to see him go properly.

You have to change the word moons, because you need to look formal in your essay and that reference will not help you with the academic or bussines style.

Another adviece I could give you is that if you want to indrocuce "about when my dad was deployed to various places such as", you need to show it on the first paragraph as a part of introduction.

Callum, I have to ask, is this for a college application or for a creative writing class? If you are writing it for a creative writing class, then you have more leeway with the story, based upon how you want to run with it, than if you are writing it in response to a college prompt.

As a creative writing piece, you can very well go into the direction that you want it to. Just remember that the expansive manner of story telling must come full circle at the end and end with you, not your dad, not your family. You can still tell their stories, but you need to always connect your participation in it somehow. Their challenge is your challenge. It is a shared challenge. That is because in this narrative, you are the focal character. Everyone else is still a supporting player. That is the same concept even if you are writing this for a college prompt. You must still be the ultimate focus of the college application paper. Everyone else is just playing an influential role in your life based on the challenges you faced.

If you are writing this for a college prompt then don't change the focus of the prompt. From the way that you plan to present the essay, it is going to eventually be focusing on your father and your family rather than the direct effect of these fears upon you. The challenge should be about how you overcame the fears that came with your father's constant deployment overseas and the fact that you did not have a proper "goodbye" when he first left.