Determination †A Learned Trait :: Personal Narrative Experience Essays

Determination – A Learned Trait For some odd reason, the Bolivian military has a tendency to make people grow up. I was almost 18 when I was recruited, but it seems like I wasn’t much more mature than a 13 year old teenager; not that I was much older. I really felt that the world was simply a game where everyone would try to make life easy for me; I thought everything kind of revolved around me. I was well educated and polite, but things like saying â€Å"sir† simply weren’t a part of my life style. The ability to serve others for nothing still hadn’t been born within me. Incredibly that changed, beginning from the very first day of training in the Bolivian Army. Probably one of the things that helped me grow up fast was the sudden departure from my parents and friends. All of the sudden I was alone in a world of loneliness, where my only comfort was the drill sergeant yelling his lungs out at me. It was never a good idea to let anyone know you were homesick, because the drill sergeant would order a â€Å"happy hug† where every single recruit would go squeeze you as hard as they can. The first couple of happy hugs weren’t all that bad, but after 80 of them, a persons ribs feel like they’ve been run over by a truck ten times! Indeed, learning determination, coordination, and punctuality with all the exercises are one of the most challenging times in the military. Those five o’clock morning jogs – rain or shine – made us realize that it is possible to continue doing something no matter what else was going on around us; that’s a valuable lesson to learn in life. We all learned rather quickly not to yawn early in the morning, because if we did the sergeant would order us to do the â€Å"alarm clock wake up†, where the guy in front would turn around and slaps the person behind him. Then that guy would turn around and slap the guy behind him. I still feel kind of sorry for the last guy in line; he never got to smack anyone! Indeed, it is quite an effective way to wake up the troops. Unfortunately, we also learned to not have