Hello everyone. This essay is quite personal so I'd rather have a bunch of random people reading it than people I know. Please comment with feedback :)
For as long as I can remember my mother and father screamed at each other night after night, mostly ending with my mother sleeping in my twin brother's bed and my father intoxicated and passed out in his own urine. I knew it was only a matter of time until one night my father, in his drunken stupor, would end up hurting her. Just as I predicted, one night, my father got so angry that he threw a picture frame at my mother. I ran out of my room to the sound of her scream and watched as blood drenched my mother's hands and face. As my father watched in disbelief of what he had done I grabbed towels, applied pressure, and examined the cut. At that point I told my brother to get in the car and that we were taking her to the hospital. The only thing my father said as we walked by was "it was an accident". For the remainder of that year he lived with his parents while my brother, mother, and I lived at our house. My father came by periodically to take my brother out and my brother acted like nothing happened. Eventually my mother forgave him and let him move back in under the pretense he stop drinking. I will never forget that night, the night I vowed I would not stand for unwarranted violence toward the weak, the night I lost my father, the night I decided to join the military after high school.
Two years later during the summer before my senior year of high school I upheld my decision. I joined the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program, an inactive reserve of the Marine Corps you are put in while you wait to go to boot camp. I worked hard and learned crucial Marine Corps knowledge which got me promoted from private to private first class upon competition of boot camp, also known as contract PFC. I was also informally promoted to recruiting substation Fair Oaks first squad leader. This gave me the opportunity to learn how to lead and become a better recruit in boot camp and in the long run, a better Marine. I knew I was on the right path when I suffered a back injury due to overuse and my weight training teacher told me I had more heart than the entire football team. Like all my aches and pains I adapted and overcame, pushing through the weakness to get to my goal. Time passed, high school ended, I graduated, and three weeks later on my city's bike trail I was hit by another bicyclist from the rear causing me to be ejected from my bicycle and hit the pavement. Within 15 minutes I was in an ambulance and sent to the hospital. I found out I had broken my elbow, requiring surgery to insert hardware which would enable my joint to heal correctly. In addition I would need a secondary surgery within a year to remove the hardware. Needless to say I was dropped from the delayed entry program and was told I could not enlist until the hardware was taken out.
I made a commitment when I raised my right arm and swore to support and defend the Constitution of United States of America two years ago. That commitment, much like the one I am making to Fordham University, is not a statement that I take lightly. It is about as hard to amend the constitution as it is hard to change my mind when I say I'm going to do something. A pounding from the asphalt didn't even make me think twice about my goal in joining the military. I knew I had broken a bone and I knew I would have to slightly change my plans in order to fulfill my commitment.
I registered online, for community college, just a few days after my initial surgery and a month before the beginning of the fall semester of 2011 and somehow managed to get five classes. During this time I also managed to get a part time job in a small law firm. It was hard for me to do at first, but I convinced myself to polish my educational skills and make myself stand out as a leader just as I would as if I was in the Marine Corps. I transferred my motivation for the Marine Corps to education and joining ROTC.
I have maintained a X GPA, volunteer countless weekends to the Sacramento Food bank, and still have maintained my commitment to the law firm. My goals of maintaining a X GPA with five rigorous classes, a part time job, and various volunteering on the weekends was laughable to my friends and select family members. As the British producer, Mark Burnett, said "there's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing anyway". I may have been an average high school student, but due to my unrelenting motivation and realization that I can achieve more than I ever imagined with education, I will never give up, I will set high goals, and I will fulfill these goals. With that said, given the chance, I would like nothing more than to become a student at Fordham University, join ROTC and become an officer in the United States military.
