Personal Narrative Of A Paintball Battle

It was a hot summer day in Hammond, Louisiana and I was pouring down sweat like I had just jumped in a pool. The game was just about to begin, me and my team was eagle eyeing the bomb squad. It was so quiet that you could hear your own sweat hitting the bench. The umpire broke up everyone’s concentration by saying, “play ball”! The defense had ran out on the field and I started rolling ground balls from 2nd to short-stop to third base. They had all made good throws back to me and then I threw the ball into the dug-out because the game had begun.

So me, Anna, and my mom all decide to have a nerf gun war. Anna and I made the choice to team up on my mom. I was hiding behind the couch and Anna was in the dining room and my mom was in her room. My plan was to run from behind the couch to the dining room without getting shot with the nerf gun by my mom. My plan worked out but something happened while trying to run.

The heat bears down on me, as I feel my skin burning in the hot summer sun. Dust and dirt floats around the air and a thin layer of grime covers my entire body. Sweat drips around my goggles while adrenaline fills my body and my heart races. In the middle of nowhere in Virginia, I feel at home, I feel the turf under my cleats and the cool metal of the stick in my hands. As the timer ticks down, the buzzer rings, and the game begins. I look to my left and see my dad sitting on the sideline, ready to cheer as loud as possible. To my right I find my teammates, the most loyal group of friends I have, ecstatic about the potential of winning.

Gary Soto is an author of many novels, short stories, and poetry. He was born and raised in the U.S. by his Mexican American family. In his writings, he creates characters and settings influenced or surrounded by cultures and ideas similar to those he grew up and lived with. He includes common characteristics of the Mexican American people that he became familiar with growing up.

Ever since I was 8 years old, lacrosse has been my life. My teammates are my family, the field is my home, and the game is a huge part of who I am. When I was 12 and entering middle school I decided it was time to join a more serious team with other guys like me, that share my passion for the sport. I ended up joining an "alright" team with a bunch of "alright" players. After a few seasons with them, I realized I wasn't challenging myself and playing up to my potentional. My parents and I decided it was time for me to take it to the next level and join one of the most prestigiuos boys lacrosse travel teams on Long Island; the Long Island Outlaws.

It was dead silent as the ball sat in the air and as if time had stopped. It was December of 2015, I was 13, my team and I was playing for 3rd place in the Colt Classic Tournament. It was a night game at Barrington Station High School. We were playing the Barrington Colts, which was weird considering they are playing for 3rd in their own tournament that they were hosting, before the game, I was talking to some of my teammates Aaron Pattis, Stephen Harris, Bradley Jenkins, Ayden Anderson and I were talking before the game, going into that game we speculated that we had this game in the bag easily as a result of how well our team was playing. Little did we know, we had another problem coming.

So i go to bed, the next morning i set off to survive with a knife he gives his opponent and he gets a pistol, a pack of dogs, and ivan. I started walking in circles, making a bunch of tracks, hoping it would confuse him. 2 days past by of us setting traps for each other and on my 3rd day he almost got me. I killed one of his dogs and ivan with my traps. While i was getting away from him, i jumped into the water making it look like i gave up. So he went home thinking he won the game and at twelve the day was over he went into his room and there i was waiting for

All of my teammates wanted me to go pick up the trophy because I scored the winning goal.

First of all I was in my dark room with the only light being my t.v, I playing Xbox with my friend Skylar, we were playing Rainbow Six Siege a counter terrorism shooter. It was a late on a dark, stormy night, it was bomb objective and only I was left on the team to face five other enemies defusing the bomb and I slowly and stealthy with his silenced pistol picked off about two enemies outside the objective roaming and then pulled out his primary the 416-C Assault Rifle and went in blazing in the objective and his heart was racing he picked off another two enemies and that’s when he began guarding the defuser waiting to find the last enemy. “Can you search cams Skylar?” I asked Skylar.

As a former company intern, the possibility of returning to Targeted Victory to work with the client strategy team serves as the ideal situation for both the company and I. The experience and training that I gained at Targeted Victory, in the year that I was there, has been one of the most insightful work periods of my life. Now as the opportunity to return to the company presents itself, I see no better move than to return to the company that taught me and invested in me while I still relatively new to the political arena.

At the same time I thought I heard General coming with a hound. Instantly I thought of another trap I learned about called the Burmese Tiger Pit. In this trap you dig down a few feet and put carved out spiked made from wood at the bottom and place branches and leaves on top of the hole to hide it. When I was done making it I ran as fast as I could to a big log. I was hiding behind the log when I heard a loud scream, General then called out that I had done a good job and killed one of the best dogs that he had. He then went back to his house again. Later on Ivan was with General and by this time i only had to survive a few more hours to win so past the swamp I made the Uganda knife trap, this is then you take a sapling of a tree and tie a knife to it and pull the sapling bad to the ground and when you trigger it the sapling springs up and the knife hits the victim. The trap worked, but it hit Ivan and not General, with Ivan dead General saw me, I ran as fast as I could towards A cliff and across the water I could see General’s house, so I jumped not knowing what was going to happen to me. General gave up because he thought I was dead so he went back home and later that night when he came into his room I came out of the curtains I was hiding in and confronted him, and since I was General got fed to his

I thought to myself who had done this but most of all I wanted to get revenge so in the next round I would leave mercy behind me and that's when I realized my love of paintball. When i was a child and my brother would come back with his friends from paintballing he would show me the perfect circle bruises he got and that scared me to a point where i thought that getting hit by a bus would be better.

Close to a year ago, my brother and I went to Darlington South Carolina for a NASCAR race. This was our third race and third time being in this crazy but wonderful environment. The people were drinking, the laughter was loud but genuine, and the race was thrilling. The excitement you get from hearing the loud cars, seeing them crash and the excitement of the crowd was overpowering. I had goosebumps from every bit of it. The smells from the burnt rubber, the smell of the smoke from the cars after hitting the wall or crashing into another car, the blinding lights from the fireworks when the race was over, and people going crazy was so overpowering. The parties that night were entertaining. People treated complete strangers like family, and fed

Seconds later the ref blew the whistle. My team had won the game! Everybody was elated that I scored, except for Bob, who complained that I had been selfish. We fought like cat and dog, but everybody backed me, because I was the one who scored. A wise man knows when to retreat, and as frustrated as he was, Bob wasn’t stupid.

The most important thing I learned about myself as a Non-Commissioned Officer during multiple deployments happened at the nine month mark of my third deployment. I learned that as a leader you must put yourself in front at all times to ensure the safety and security of your soldiers. I also learned that no matter how difficult the situation, everyone will fall back on the training they received in order to ensure mission success. Extensive training coupled with strong leadership all the way through the Army level are necessary for the accomplishment of some of the most difficult missions.