Narration Essay

Clayton Nass
Narration Essay
February 4, 2009
Jasmine Krotzman

While the teacher lectured, I stared out the window, dreaming about my lives past. I think about my life as a slave in the 1850’s, surviving through the civil war and eventually to freedom. I think about fighting through WWI for the glorious nation of Great Britain. I recall my memories growing up in the streets of Harlem, and experiencing the Renaissance of the roaring ‘20’s. I lived through WWII with the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, and the fall of the Nazi Party. Lately, it’s been my most recent life on my mind. It was the age of rebellion, chaos, and hardship. This was the 1960’s.
My name was Billy Andrews and I was just a small town chap from a little place outside Charleston, West Virginia. I grew up in a middle class home with my Ma and Pa, and my three little brothers. Thank the lord my old man got to go to college on his GI Bill from WWII or we would’ve been some mighty poor folks. He was always telling us his war stories, and how he’d never wish that upon any of us to do what he had to do for his country. Now don’t get me wrong, he was an honorable patriotic man, but he’d just as soon of stayed back home and worked on the farm. Now our parents were high school sweethearts and they were like two peas in a pod. They got married before the war and when dad got home they had a lot of catching up to do, and they made a few goo kids. Mom always took care of us and my brothers and I grew up the closest of friends. I grew up as a normal kid though. I worked hard for the family, studied hard in school, and watched football on our black and white.
Before I knew it I had arrived in the 60’s, and I was in high school. How the world truly was a big mess at this time. US troops were being sent to Vietnam, and a man by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. was delivering powerful speeches all over the country, in support of civil rights. The president of the United States was shot and killed in 1963 causing insanity among the citizens. But in early 1964, the biggest event of my life hadn’t even happened yet.
I joined the military. I to this day don’t remember what I was thinking. I was shipping off to Vietnam. I did my military training in a base camp located in Buffalo, New York. I stayed there and was trained by the United States Marine Corps as a field specialist sniper. (I figured that would be an okay job since I would get shot at last) I was deployed in 1965, the year before the draft that sent about 500,000 fresh recruits into action. I was one of the older men in my squad, at twenty years old. We’d go out on patrol after patrol searching for and sometimes destroying the communist forces. I saw much death, pain, and downright insanity. But, there is one day in particular that I will never forget.
It was supposed to be my last day in Vietnam. This was my last hurrah, and when my final patrol was over I could get back to the states, and leave this jungle hell forever. It was cold, dark night as I walked through the jungles. It was just me, my rifle, and my prayers. My patrol and I had noticed a small gathering of light on the ground a short distance away so we decided to investigate. We figured it to be a part of the series of tunnels that the Vietcong army had set up, as a means of surprise attacking their enemy. We crept down a short ladder into a hole and walked silently through the dim tunnels. We made it to a large dark room at the end of a corridor and upon walking in realized we had made a grave mistake. The lights turned on an—CLAYTON!! “I’M SICK AND TIRED OF YOU DAYDREAMING THROUGHOUT MY HISTORY CLASS!” “I’M TIRED OF YOU NOT LISTENING. GO TO DETENTION,” the teacher roared. I replied “yes sir,” and walked out the room grinning from ear to ear.