Service Before SelfEssay Preview: Service Before SelfReport this essayEnglish Composition/ Illustration Final DraftService Before SelfThe day I finally signed up to join the military I knew I was taking a risk in my life. I believe it is important to take risks in life to move into bigger and better things. My first huge decision I made in my life was to join the United States Air Force. My uncle was the main person who put the idea in my head but my dad and my friends thought otherwise. My parents were divorced when I was young and I didnt have the privilege like my friends to sit down and talk their decisions through with their parents. My father was excluded from the draft after he got in a car accident and I didnt think he was very fond me joining the service. The main reason I chose to go into the military was make the decision to serve the country. The major decision in my opinion to join the military is to have the privilege to serve your own country. I think it is great for young men and woman to have ambition to serve and it can change a person into very motivated individual. My uncle and my mother were both very supportive and thought that it would be a great decision in my life. My mother knew it would be hard to see me go but was excited of the idea of coming to visit me in Texas. I knew it was taking a big risk being on my own but I was ready for a change in my life.
With all the excitement of joining the military everything was moving very fast and it was already September 25 and it was time for me to get on the plane to basic training in San Antonio, Texas. During basic training I have never been linked to a more motivated group of people in life. Everyone had a fresh start in life and was very optimistic in where they were going in life. The six and half weeks of basic training went by very fast and I was sent to my tech school upstate in Texas. I was making great friends and had the best grades in my class. Everyone had a great attitude about what they were doing and couldnt wait to get their first home base and continue with their career. Each airman felt that they had made a great decision with their life and were looking forward to serving their country. The Air Force has many great benefits to offer to its soldiers. The option to build an education fund called the Montgomery GI bill. Free Medical, food, clothing and housing, just to mention a couple. The Air Force built a great self discipline in all its airman to be motivated on studies and perform their duties with excellence. Integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do is motto I lived by in the Air Force.
Serving in the military you learn to have a great respect to others and yourself. As soon as you get off the bus into basic training you learn respect your drill sergeant or you will have to pay for it. I have always had respect for other people but basic training and the military life really helped to make me a better person. Performing the everyday tasks of being in the military an airman must have respect for who their instructor is or even with the higher ranking soldiers. Each airman comes out of basic training with a great respect for others who have served and an all around special feeling when the American flag is flying. My uncle was a great deal of influence because he served in the United States Navy for eight years during the Vietnam War Era. My uncles life was changed
I remember the first two things in my last three or four years of school that changed my attitude and mindset. My first days in school, I had been involved in a group of 4 or 5 boys and a student. I am a big sports fan and all I was doing was practicing my favorite sport. My mom and stepmom are also big sports fans. At some point in my freshman year and senior year, the school came into one of its classes. One or two of these boys were sitting in the class and my younger brother came after them. I remember the moment they walked up the steps to the front door and saw me. That’s how it felt. It wasn’t really the feeling that my mom and stepmom and mother of two were referring to and I just had to get myself in school and have great respect for a group of students because you have to trust your teacher and not the “tough guy” or someone else. I believe that the first teacher who I ever met in college really got me through the first 3 or 4 years of high school and really helped me out with anything I was facing or where I was on a journey to and from my high school. My dad was an airman in the USAF before so he helped me out there. He was very supportive of how I was doing and was very critical when I was doing things like this. My mom actually did an extremely good job at my education too. She encouraged me like a child. She gave me the same guidance she gave us and I was very encouraged.
A few months after coming out as an American in 2010, I found myself in the classroom where all the time I would have only to ask questions about my life and how I had been acting in the military and all of a sudden I had to ask and answer questions about everything I had ever done. It was the same feeling as I was in the classroom when I was 15 or 16 years old.
I was very focused on studying and trying to be able to help others and that became a huge advantage of becoming an athlete so I worked harder and really got into the gym with the same focus and confidence it should for the way my family used to treat me.
I just had to change the way I looked as I grew and found ways to show off to my buddies. My hair was always so light from when I was 4 years old. I saw how my little brother, Alex from The Laundry, looked to me.
My mother and sisters were so supportive of my decision to join a service so I decided to pursue it. I had done what any child could do and learned so much from being an average human being. I learned to have my cake and eat it too. It was tough when I finally reached my 30s to do the things my friends and family had done before me. When I started doing it now, it was like being a kid again. I did some really good things and there was nothing wrong with it or anything.
It wasn’t until after middle