Personal Narrative: My Interview With Ernest Mendoza

The person I interviewed was my grandpa Ernest Mendoza who is seventy five years old walked into the interview trying to remember his post secondary education that was quite a while ago. His post secondary education was being a part of the US military. The branch he was in, was the Army. The way he came to joining the army, was when he was drafted. He was drafted the day before Christmas, when he was twenty four years old. Being drafted made Ernest very nervous and worried, but he didn’t want to let his family and country down. When he was drafted he was required to serve for two years, then two years in active reserve and two years inactive. When he was serving for his two years, he was stationed in Germany by the Berlin Wall. He was there to keep peace and this was known and the cold war, but

The way he spoke about the army was very insightful, because he was very proud to have served and be apart of the Us Military. He told me that back then he was a bit of a troublemaker and wasn’t always the smartest teenager. When I asked him, if you hadn’t joined the army, do you think you would be the same adult as you are today? His said very seriously and a little jokingly, was “No, I would probably be in jail or dead because of behavior problems.” This was a great way to show how he came of age. Ernest saying this really shows that being in the army was a big impact on his life, because he even said that if it wasn’t for the army I would most likely be in jail. So we can see that from being in the army really taught Ernest discipline, which he still uses today. In addition, I also asked Ernest if he looked up to someone and why. He responded by saying “I looked up to my sergeants, they taught me how to behave, because I was not very well disciplined.” From what my grandpa said, joining the army really taught him many important life values, that really changed the way he began to look at