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Fort Bragg: My First Road Trip Essay

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Fort Bragg: My First Road Trip

When you are a teenager you reach a certain point in your life when you want to be independent. You get this feeling that you want to do something on your own to prove you can. When I was seventeen, in the fall of 2001, I had that feeling that I needed to do something on my own. I needed an adventure to show everyone that I was old enough to be on my own for once. I needed something exciting and new. I talked to my friend Annie and we came up with a plan for our adventure. We decided to go on a road trip to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and this is my story.

It was our first road trip with no adults to watch over us or to help us in any way. Annie had a cousin named Steve who …show more content…

Annie’s parents had a military ID we could use to get on the base. We bought a road map and planned our trip out before we started. We even went to the store and stocked up on food for the five-hour car ride. We were going to leave school at eleven on Friday, but as we loaded the car before school we got excited and decided to just leave then. We would have been late for school anyway and we really wanted to get there and surprise them. We were so ecstatic about this road trip because we were actually doing it ourselves.

We made really good time from Johnson City to Fayetteville, North Carolina and we did not get lost until we got to the base. Annie’s cousin Steve told us to go to the base beside Fort Bragg named Fort Pope, because it would be easier to get through the checkpoint without a special sticker you need. We found the other base easily, but the trouble started when we reached the checkpoint. This being my first time at an army base, I was quite scared. I am not accustomed to all the yelling, guns, and seriousness. We had to wait in line a long time while they searched everyone’s car. Since September eleventh the guards have been more strict during their searches and what they allow on the base. When it was finally my turn I pulled up to the station and rolled down my window and waited for further instructions. They told me to open all the doors, pop my trunk, pop my hood, and to get of the car. While they

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