Personal Narrative: My Life In Afghanistan

We were dumping tea off the boat and I saw the soldiers. Then I said run and we all were jumping into boats and running on the docks. Luckily no one was caught.They looked for us and the days went by before we could leave our

We all had a branding on our wrist with our number and the Nickname they gave us they put us through combat.. Training. Saying that they want Us to become the first kid teenager army training kids to become killers for the next combat missions.

We were stationed in Camp Taylor, Kentucky until the call came in that we were being shipped over to France to help hold the lines. They had lost a great number of soldiers after the battle of Verdun. The last few months it had been raining relentlessly and no one had seen the sun in days. The sun finally showed itself. We were glad. I thought that day would be the day everyone could finally get everything right “GAS! Gas! Quickly men!” I screamed at everyone in the showers. They all ran outside wearing nothing but skin and put on their gas masks. They still didn’t meet the time

turning my head again I saw Simon dive to my aid. He did not utter a

“Just another day at the office” my Sergeant said. It was June 3rd, 1944, we were preparing for one of the biggest missions of the century. We would be named the 101st Airborne Division and it would be one of the worst turning points in my life. We were training for over a year for this day. We had to act fast because it was right before D-Day.

My grandpa does not remember the start of the War since he was too young, but he certainly remembers things that happened back home during the war, and the joy at the end of the war. The first point that he brought up was practicing for air raids. After the bombing attacks in Hawaii, no one knew where the next strike point would be. As a result, every town practiced drills. He recalls that, “When the siren blew everyone had to pull the curtains so no one could see anything,” because they didn’t want to provide targets if bombers did appear. Many schools also established evacuation plans and held bomb drills, but they often turned “dangerously and embarrassingly chaotic” (Ossian, 26).

The soldiers quickly learn that training camp is useless; you learn everything you need to know in battle and in the heat of the moment. In the movie they showed the kids coming into war fresh out of training camp. They were probably about my age, or even younger. One of the older soldiers saw them, then looked at the trucks and saw it filled with coffins and said, “Headquarters was even nice enough to send us stuff to fill them with,” while he was motioning towards the newcomers. In war the space in between your trench and your enemies was called no man’s land. In no man’s land it was infested with lice, flesh eating rats, and flies. Sometimes the soldiers would walk out while they were at their turn at offense, and rats would crawl out of the eye sockets of dead bodies eating the eyeballs of their fallen comrades. There was death and unsanitary conditions everywhere.

Our story begins like any other love story out there. He is a country boy lives in the Midwest of the states, and I’m a city girl was born in Vietnam. One day, he decided to follow his dream, and move to Vietnam, and at the same time I had to leave my country to go to the states with my family. On that summer day in Vietnam, we ran into each other at the airport. A guy with the deep voice, looked into my eyes and asked if I was okay. Suddenly, my heart beat faster and I lost my mind for a second when I looked into his blue eyes. We had a short conversation, then say goodbye and walked in two different directions.

In many ways, my grandma is a stereotypical old granny. She loves to watch game shows on TV, she yells at you for not eating enough, and she constantly needs help with technology. Beneath her rough, wrinkled exterior lies an equally tough spirit. She has faced numerous challenges to get where she is today. Along the way she learned lessons that she passed down to her daughter, who then passed them down to me. My grandma taught me to work hard, to be persistent, and to treat others the way you want to be treated.

Each night seemed like an entire season, full of constant suspense and fear of your neighborhood being attacked and the potential harming of the women and children locked inside the guarded homes. Some neighborhoods were luckier than others in that they were avoided by the uncontrolled militias, while others had to pray they were prepared enough for attacks. Attackers that were contained were not shown remorse, and likewise had your luck handed you or yours into their hands. Needless to say this was a very mentally demanding, testing, and above all changing experience for all those who took part.

In Afghanistan, especially before the coup, I could have never guessed how my pride would grow for my son. Before he aged into the determined man he continues to be today, I would have sadly, but truthfully reported his mind was weighed down with a weak man’s spinelessness. When Amir and I fled to America, I promised myself to stop grinding myself on the bloody post of memories those Russians forced us on. I swore to finally move past the painful hauntings of Afghanistan. Looking back, I can say I stayed true to my promise, and fought for him, never doing anything but the best. Now, I hope he would have the strength to share a similar burden for you.

I joined the Marine Corps looking for a challenge. I wanted to open doors for a new career and longed to have a positive impact on the world around me. Looking back five years later, I realize I found all that I originally sought, but I’ve also found something profoundly satisfying and meaningful that I never knew I was missing.

I learned that in Afghanistan you have to go through multiple steps to get married and it is very different than in our culture. That all of the wedding is paid for by the groom’s parents and they are the one who also give the couple land to live on. One of my failures would be understanding the wars because I believe that is done and over now so why would we have to deal with them in the present. Another would be undering standing there music and daily life, how the treated women and gave men all the power. Some of my success would be learning about the marriage, family life, education and literacy rates because that is something that draws my attention and is what I look for in life today. I think understanding their marriage rituals was

My first battle was on August 20, 1914. I’ve fought through it bravely but it was murderous. And at every move we make, we lost a dozen soldiers. I am lucky to even be alive. I no longer woke up to birds chirping, a blue sky, and the sun shining. It was becoming harder to wake up in the mornings knowing I’m one day closer to death. It was brutally heartbreaking, to see all the soldiers in pain on the battlefield. They are all

We got up before dawn the next morning . Everyone got ready, then we waited for the Soldiers to come .