Hi,
Thanks for your time. I'm applying from the UK. The event I am describing is when I was in the bathroom, listening to the bugle at a remembrance day ceremony. I think it's a Commonwealth thing- similar to Veteran's day. It happens every year at 11am of the 11day of the eleventh month. - The armistice of WW1. [ The essay is in British English but I can change that easily.]
Eleven a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month always felt mandatory; something done out of tradition, I was told it was to remember what had been lost for our country, our cause and our liberty. The true gravity in the families that had never been, memories never created or shared, and loves that never were, had never hit impacted me.
So what a ridiculous juxtaposition it was, to hear 'Last Post' for the first time, and for two minutes be consumed by the magnitude of this day, whilst alone, in the bathroom, vainly checking my face for the tiniest imperfection.
In my head the world around me dissolved; I stared into that mirror, at 18 years old, and tried to not imagine the experiences of other people: not photographs, not the voice of a war torn man in my head as I read his poems- but myself. Give me a rifle and a tin can for a helmet and force me over the top. Give me a horse and sabre and let me lead a charge into the invisible wall of machine gun fire. Give me a spade, and I'll dig myself a foxhole in the frozen ground of the Ardennes, at the mercy of the exploding trees whose splinters' shred my cloth armour.
Oh God; please don't.
How was I so blind?
Now I tell myself: 'live honestly, fully, and deep-heartedly thankful; as they would have done.'
For all of the above: the process of self-revelation, self-amendment and recognising the enormity of the tragedies in which our lives are inescapably founded on, meant that these were the most meaningful two minutes of my life.
Thanks for your time. I'm applying from the UK. The event I am describing is when I was in the bathroom, listening to the bugle at a remembrance day ceremony. I think it's a Commonwealth thing- similar to Veteran's day. It happens every year at 11am of the 11day of the eleventh month. - The armistice of WW1. [ The essay is in British English but I can change that easily.]
Eleven a.m. on the eleventh day of the eleventh month always felt mandatory; something done out of tradition, I was told it was to remember what had been lost for our country, our cause and our liberty. The true gravity in the families that had never been, memories never created or shared, and loves that never were, had never hit impacted me.
So what a ridiculous juxtaposition it was, to hear 'Last Post' for the first time, and for two minutes be consumed by the magnitude of this day, whilst alone, in the bathroom, vainly checking my face for the tiniest imperfection.
In my head the world around me dissolved; I stared into that mirror, at 18 years old, and tried to not imagine the experiences of other people: not photographs, not the voice of a war torn man in my head as I read his poems- but myself. Give me a rifle and a tin can for a helmet and force me over the top. Give me a horse and sabre and let me lead a charge into the invisible wall of machine gun fire. Give me a spade, and I'll dig myself a foxhole in the frozen ground of the Ardennes, at the mercy of the exploding trees whose splinters' shred my cloth armour.
Oh God; please don't.
How was I so blind?
Now I tell myself: 'live honestly, fully, and deep-heartedly thankful; as they would have done.'
For all of the above: the process of self-revelation, self-amendment and recognising the enormity of the tragedies in which our lives are inescapably founded on, meant that these were the most meaningful two minutes of my life.
