Descriptive Essay On Color Guard

“Drum majors, is your guard ready?” The words echo through a silent stadium, the only sound is the rush of feet over fake grass as thirteen teenagers rush around the turf football field, precisely placing rifles, flags, and other equipment. The thirteen find their places on the field and kneel behind the drumline, the cool metal of a six-foot flag in their hands. One member of the guard has sweaty palms and dozens of fears running through her mind as she silently counts “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, GO.” The show opens with a magnificent toss, every guard member perfectly in sync. The audience does not see the weeks of failure that lead up to that toss, but I do. Early in the second semester of my junior year of high school, I made the decision to join the color guard for my senior year. I thought it would be fun and an “easy A” class to take. My

Most importantly, I learned how to persevere. On the first day of band camp, I went home after five hours of rehearsal and thought I was dying. Everything ached: my legs from fifty-yard sprints, my arms from burpees followed by flag technique, and even my scalp from the too-high ponytail I had subjected my hair to. The next morning, I crawled out of bed and limped back to the field with a newfound determination. I was exhausted and discouraged, but I wouldn’t let that stop me from succeeding. My team helped keep this mantra alive throughout the season. Each day, after relentless corrections were screamed at us for several hours from the end zone, we would tell each other the things we did well and laugh about our mistakes. By the first competition, I was catching each toss in our show, but it was the failures leading up to that perfect moment that transformed me during that season. What I thought would be a summer of failures taught me the most valuable lesson of all- the only flags you truly drop are those that you do not even try to