Personal Narrative: A Letter To Veteran

Growing up I was the kid who looked at the world with open optimistic eyes. I grew up in a small city called Dora located in Iraq, the middle of three girls. I was born in the late 90s, I have been told that I was born "at the end of the good days". That's when Iraq's political circumstances were not at peace at all, at 2003 another war broke in Iraq. My family felt threatened by all the violence the country was in. That's when my family and I fled to Syria for limited time intel the country's condition could get better. When we came back to iraq at that time the security conditions in Iraq were terrible They got from bad to worse. One evening a massive shooting occurred near our

Being a military dependent is something I have known my whole life. My dad joined the Air Force in 1988 at the age of twenty-four. He initially joined the military to help people, but wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, this led him to fighting fires until 2010. I was born in the year 1999; I grew up with him working twenty-four hour shifts and then being home for twenty-four hours. My father’s time in the military shaped who I was by his instilling in me responsibility, love for people, and the core values of the United States Air Force.

I am thankful for all the friends I have met over the years. Meeting new people is always hard but I have learned over the years that sometime all it takes is for someone to say hello. The tension goes away and the friendship begins. In Mississippi, I met a girl named Caitlyn. To this day, I don’t know how we became friends but it was probably because our dads worked together. Military kids usually cling together because we know what each of us has gone through and we know how it feels when a parent leaves on deployment.

Growing up in Iraq in the era between the gulf war, Iran war, and Iraq war with the United state was a challenge for me, but it was not harder challenge than all what my parents went through to keep me and my siblings safe and sound. My mother is one of the strongest people that I have came cross in my life. She was and still the best mother, teacher, and my best friend. She graduated from Al Mosul University in Iraq as a Mechanical Engineer. Being a daughter of graduated mother will always push me to complete my education and go even further to earn my master degree too.

In my life I have faced some extremely trying experiences and, from them, learned some very valuable lessons. My father, SPC Theodore “TJ” Ingemanson, an Iraq War Veteran and Wounded Warrior, passed unexpectedly, from injuries he suffered during his deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was twelve years old. Two months after this devastating event, my mother was sent to prison for choices she made that impacted our lives in a negative way. Life, as I knew it, became a chaotic tailspin, changing rapidly and drastically. I moved in with my father’s aunt and uncle, as it is the home where he grew up, and they were the ones that my family trusted and knew they would provide a strong, stable, and loving home. Aunt Rose and Uncle Bob are the people that have

As a new and young manager at McDonald’s I had a lot of responsibility and stress on my plate. I worked for them for about a year and a half before I was promoted and I got to know the crew and got close to some before I moved up. One of the hardest things to do as a manager is run a shift when you are understaffed. The excuses you get from people will have you rethinking your life and the position you’re in.

Loud noises seemed to scare me, I have no idea why but screeching tires, Revving engines, screaming children, and even the occasional barking dog will get me on edge and paranoid.

I’m running out of my house, slamming the door behind me and shouting, “I’m free!” at the top of my air-filled pink lungs. I get a few weird looks from the neighbors that are outside and a few from even the one’s inside but they’re used to my usual crazy outbursts. I don’t know if I should be worried by that or not. Into my little gray car I go and then it happens. I am speed. Down the winding and twisting roads to Preston, Iowa where I love to go hiking in my grandparents timbers. While I’m driving possibly a ton over the speed limit I scream-sing Pink Floyd on the little cars full volume. There’s no stopping me now, brothers.

I’ve felt a lot of pain in my life. Physical pain, Mental pain. Just, pain! I have suffered with anxiety, I have had sleep troubles, I have grieved. But I can imagine the pain, or sorrow, confusion or despair that lurks out there on the battlefield. Emotions slithering around and slowing choking people to death. But not just regular people. But Veterans, soldiers , draftee, musketeers, those amazing, strong, powerful souls that stood their very own lives up for others. Facing death head on and screaming their names out for the people they love. And people need to respect that honor, that authority, those people that risked or even gave their own lives to us, for us. Giving to us so much, and we can give them so little. But on this day I respect,

Late 2005 I was assigned to 2-35 Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, HI. I re-enlisted into the Army after almost a three year break in service. On my previous enlistment, I served in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment from the 82nd Airborne Division. All the new soldiers to include myself were standing in formation waiting on the Battalion Command Sergeant Major (CSM) to speak to us. I was the only Private First Class with a Combat Infantryman Badge, an Expert Infantryman Badge, and a combat deployment to Afghanistan. The CSM began by welcoming us to the unit and asking who wanted to go to the Scout Platoon. Several of us in the formation raised our hands. The CSM looked at my right shoulder and saw my

I do not budge. 10 minutes pass. 15 minutes pass. 30 minutes pass. 45 minutes pass. I am lying in the fetal position on the floor of my bedroom. I am gripping at my lower abdomen. My pelvis pulsates. I imagine someone ringing a rag within me.

Entering the once lonely house, there was a family rejoicing with a long-gone relative. As striking as the first rose in spring, her silky, soft, shiny hair combined with her enticingly exquisite eyes: producing a sublime look. Her upturned nose, oval face and elegant cheeks exhilarated hope within anyone in sight; she filled a void that could only be filled by her. Instantly ejecting any ridicule of the family, her presence made the household regain its original nobility.

Sitting in the same eerie darkness as my comrades, I lifted my head once to see the dark outlines of their faces. Each face was hardened and darkened by the interminable warfare that each of them had struggled through. Medals, titles, they had earned them all. But what did it do? What does a title mean through the course of a raging war, where men leave their families every day, going off to a faraway land where they will never return? What do medals do when we take the lives of others who have families to take care of? Shadows danced along the sides of the wall as the the truck bumped over the different terrain. The truck jerked to a halt at the drop point. All the men in the care stood up, straightened their backs with deadly precision, and loaded their weapons. We had all been briefed, each man knowing their own job to do. That was the way in our special unit. The lack of windows made it impossible to see out of the

The time was August 1990, I was a young man at the age of 19. President Bush Sr. had put into motion what started off as Desert Shield, later escalating into Desert Storm due to Saddam Hussein taking over the country of Kuwait and making his way to the country of Saudi Arabia. The Marines where the first one’s in with boots on the ground. The time I spent in Desert Shield/Storm helped me transform me from a young boy into a responsible man, with oh so real events that became part of American History. My family and friends say their little boy wasn’t the same that left the States as the one that returned a man.

One challenge that i have faced and that impacted me in a drastically manner was my cousins death. Many people overcome a death in a few weeks, but it took me a while to face the fact that I was no longer going to see him. His death really effected me because he was the only one who supported my dreams in going to the army . I guess it was because he was in the army at that time. I would always get put down because my dreams where not for a girl but he was the only one who understood my dream to go to the army. I never in tented applying to college, it never crossed my mind. I wanted to go to the army. My cousin had just came back honorably discharged from the army at the age of 21, I was happy he came back alive. A few Weeks before this nightmare happened he told my parents not to let me go to the army, he said i didn't deserve that