My Great-Grandfather

My grandfather, Cosmo Damiano Depinto was born on May 15, 1939 in the small town of Molfetta, Italy. He is the son of Nicoletta Depinto, his mother, who was one of three siblings. Her two sisters were named Lina and Giovanna. His mother had a full time job as a seamstress. His grandmother was responsible for making fishing nets. His grandfather, Orazio, had a similar profession in the fishing industry and and worked as a local fisherman. But unfortunately he passed away when a mine blew up while he was fishing in his boat after World War I (1914-1918).

Twenty-six years ago I a 17-year-old boy joined the United States Army. I served my country faithfully for 22 years, two months and four days; I served in the Transportation Corps. My time in the army was a special period in my life. I gain a lot of life experiences as well as professional ones; the military shaped and molded me into the husband, father son, and brother that I am today. During my service, I grew up and learned several life lessons that would serve me well in and out of the army. To get a real understand on how the military shaped me into the person, I am today; I must first give you some insight into the person I was before I left for basic training. I graduated high school in 1991 just four months’ shy of my 18th birthday;

The author Wes, when first being forced into military school by his mother was very eager to go back home and tried everything he could to make it back home, over the course of a couple of years that idea started to change. “I was now a platoon sergeant, a cadet master sergeant, and the youngest senior noncommissioned officer in the entire corps. Three years ago I’d been one of the insubordinate kids first entering the gates of Valley Forge. In an ironic turn, I was now one of the ones in charge of them” (Moore 115). One can see the dramatic switch in the author’s motivation, he once upon a time had a mixture of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation due to where he used to live and his surroundings, now he’s eager to progress in the military with strictly intrinsic motivation, with the plus of the extrinsic motivation of making his mother happy, but he mostly did it for himself. The author at this point knows that there are no rewards in the military, no payment for training nothing but pride, and is functioning on nothing but making himself content with his achievements, he’s focusing on the human not the economic aspect (Pink 25). In the other Wes’s case, his motivation did shift a bit after his friend Levy had told him about the Job Corps. He was a bit speculate because he’d heard about it before, going to the Job Corps was purely intrinsic on his part; he wanted to get out of the dealing game. Though, he had high motivation while in the Job Corps it

“The Way of a Cherokee” by Foxxy was the essay I read to form this response Essay. Foxxy helps us imagine the time she lived in Montana with her grandparents. Where her grandfather told stories to her and her sister, Sierra, while they sat at his feet dreaming of being Cherokee warriors. Sierra and Foxxy wanted to see everything their grandpa was telling them, so they would go out on adventures. On the way home from one of the adventures Foxxy’s foot got stuck in the bog, her sister then ran to get her grandfather to save the day. Foxxy and Sierra think very highly of their grandfather and they believe he is the best. After he passed, the smallest things would jolt her memory of all the tales and adventures they had. There are many examples that identify my personal connections and help me relate to Foxxy and her grandfathers relationship, such as, living with my grandparents, my grandpa telling my siblings and I stories, and being adventurous with my sister.

For my interview with an older adult I interviewed a man named Herald who is 83 years old, or years young as he would say, on Saturday the 19th of September at his home in the town of Griffin, Georgia. In asking Herald to describe his background I determined that he was born in Long Island, New York in the year 1933 and lived there for the first 17 years of his life. Upon turning 17 he packed up his things and moved out west to Idaho where he worked as a park ranger for a several year until he moved back home where he enlisted in the army. When asking him about his family he described himself as an only child, with a mother and a father of European dissent. Herald was married to a woman named Doris for 45 years until she died in early 2000 of an inoperable brain tumor that was thought to be caused by the traditional radiation treatments for acne she received as a child. He has four living children from his marriage with Doris, two sons and two daughters, each of which still live in the state of Georgia and two who still live in Griffin where they were born. As well as this he has five grandchildren, three of which are boys and two who are girls. Three of his grandchildren are in college within the Georgia university system and the other two are in high school.

There have been countless influential people in my life that I’ve come across. One who was a meticulous inspiration continues to be my grandfather. My grandmother had remarried to the one I call “grandpa” when I was at the age of five, and they both took to each other’s grandchildren as their own. With my mother and me only living a mile down the road from their farmhouse out in the country, I’d spent heaps amount of time there as a child. Indeed, I had been without a father but my grandfather stepped up to the plate and had taken me under his wing and willingly played the personification of a father figure.

I chose to interview Hayward Thues for this paper. Hayward is an African American male and he is my paternal grandfather. Hayward was born in Ringgold, Louisiana in 1930 and is currently 86 years old. He relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, along with his mother and siblings when he was an adolescent. Hayward’s father died when he was very young, so he does not have any memories of him. Hayward currently lives with his wife, my paternal grandmother, and they have been married for 65 years. One of my oldest uncles also lives with my grandparents, as well as a few cousins. My grandparents typically have one or more family members residing with them at any given time; they have never lived in their home alone. My grandfather utilizes

In 1952 my grandfather, Albert S. Thanhauser, waited in line with the incoming class of Air Force soldiers in upstate New York as they prepared to enter the Korean War. Each quaking private presented their papers to the stone-faced officer at the front of the line, to receive their military assignment. As my grandfather approached with his documentation, something peculiar happened. “Hmm… Thanhauser,” muttered the gruff officer, “M.O.T.?” he asked quietly. A Brooklyn Jew, Al’s eyes lit up as he nodded and his papers were placed with the rest in the pile. M.O.T: Member of the Tribe, was an instantly recognizable code of camaraderie amongst Jews. Two weeks after this encounter, the night before being shipped off to Korea, Al received a memo: He was being pulled from the pack headed for Hell and instead was shipped to Japan to set up a flight school at an American base. The two years he spent on the airbase were some of the best of his life. Was this story was likely intended to instill me with a connection to Judaism? Was it just another of my Grandpa’s crazy stories? I had always focused on the result of this story - how it dramatically affected my grandfather’s life. But as I have grown older, the story has begun to resonate with me as beautiful demonstration of an act of kindness and virtue that I learn and grow from.

For this journal, my target audience was anyone that was thinking of returning to school, regardless of their age, or affiliation and wanted it to be as personable as possible. I stated in my essay that my superiors pressed me to attend classes, and even I try to encourage my Soldiers to take college courses. However, the truth is, our encouragement is more of a forcing since we know better, and any decent leader wants them to achieve more than you have in your career. This paper allowed me to share my story of deciding to come back to college and hopefully, each person that is having a difficult time deciding can be at ease that they are not the only ones, which will ultimately change my approach when talking to Soldiers.

On the 23rd of January in the year 2003, at around 1:00 in the afternoon at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, I was born into the world. My parents, Frederick Torres Nangca and Rowena Aldana Nangca, and I first settled in my grandparent’s studio as a child. The space was small but open for the most part. From what I remember, the wall that was on the same side as the door had a drawer beneath the television where they kept most of their belongings. Just across from that was a blue couch that they had pushed up against the ten windowed wall. Next to the couch was a smaller beige dresser that held my grandfather’s extra clothes along with a few of my grandmother’s accessories. My grandmother and grandfather often held novenas and parties in honor of God.

I was delighted and honored to carry out an interview with my 89 year old grandmother Marie Charles. It did not take much of an effort to establish a rapport with my interviewee; she was more than willing to open up to whomever that was willing to lend an open ear. Marie felt comfortable to share her life experiences with me, during the interview. Her demeanor exemplified one who is full of grace and compassionate towards others. Marie emigrated from Haiti and has been living in the United States for 45 years. She enjoyed her life experiences both within the states and in her native country of Haiti.

I had the confidence to go the college but was not sure about my career goals. It was a tough choice because my parents had advanced degrees and expected me to pursue the same path. I promised them I would get a college degree and start taking classes once I completed my AIT. I left for Basic Combat Training at Ft. Leonardwood on November 12, 2012. During my time there, I was inspired to become a commissioned officer. Our Company XO, 1 Lt. Donaldson, told us an inspiring story about his experiences in the Army. He had defined himself as a “go getter”, taking advantage of the resources the Army had provided him. During his time as an enlisted soldier he had obtained two college degrees. He constantly strove to improve himself to be able to take on any task that he was confronted with. Through his story, I realized that education was not only the key to being successful as a civilian, but also as a soldier. I had graduated from basic training on February 7, 2013 and would soon set out for San Angelo, Texas to attend the 35 November course at Good Fellow

Throughout my life, my parents instilled the importance of being educated and although I enlisted in the military, that did not stop me from pursuing my educational goals. Within six months of being assigned to my new base, I enrolled in college and started taking classes. By the second semester, I established a partnership with a local college so other airmen within my unit could take classes together and be collectively supportive of their educational endeavors. This was the first ever unit supported college class for our element.

My seven and a half years in the Army were well worth my time, and I am a proud veteran of the United States. After my sixth year in the Army, I decided that I have served enough and I needed to move closer to my family. I have satisfied my want to travel both near and far. My academic journey was not easy, but unique to me. I will never forget the first time I received a low GPA and failed my first class. It did not stop me from pursuing an education, instead it was a learning lesson. I took every negative outcome and turned it into a positive one. I became desperately devoted to my education because I saw knowledge as the key to freeing myself from the chains of

Based upon what I have learned after interviewing my grandmother over the 1960’s era, I came to understand what it was like for those that lived during that time. The 1960’s was a time of change. The ideas of politics, society, and overall way of life was completely transforming. The idea of revolution some would say grew as a heavy thought throughout a lot of Americans during the time especially in the younger generations. Though America was facing it conflicts in society with culture change, racism and foreign policies, the country itself was growing. The United States became a place where once ideas only mankind could only dream about were becoming real. This paving the way for America to take the roll in securing its title the greatest country on Earth.