this is a paper i wrote about a fam­ily member/friend in the armed forces that i had to write about from a point of empa­thy. I wrote about my big sis Melany. my pro­fes­sor said she wanted it to be com­pas­sion­ate; i sauced up the per­sona of mel alil bit, but i love her to death any­ways! Enjoy, and please com­ment freely.

thanx! han­nah b

My sis­ter Melany is in the Mon­tana Army National Guard and the Honor Guard. She has served six years so far since she grad­u­ated high school in 2003. She has served hon­or­ably to our nation and I am very proud of her. She is a very brave, strong, suc­cess­ful woman par­tially because of the army. I only hope I can be as great as her someday.

My older sis­ter Melany was 19 when she joined the Mon­tana Army National guard. I was only 16 when she left for basic train­ing in Fort Jack­son, North Car­olina. She kept in touch with me while she was down there through let­ters. She always said she missed peo­ple from Helena like her good friends, her fam­ily, and boyfriend. I relate and under­stand her miss­ing every­one. I left for col­lege in the fall of 07’. For the 1st time in my life I was leav­ing Helena to live and go to school some­where else…… I left my boyfriend, best friends, and my fam­ily in Helena to go start a new suc­cess­ful life in col­lege in Mis­soula. I’m sure Melany felt the same home­sich­ness while crawl­ing on the ground in the obsta­cle course at basic train­ing. Melany also said she wanted to take advan­tage of the phys­i­cal chal­lenge that the army had to offer to her. Through the Mon­tana Army National guard, she got a pre-guaranteed part-time job at Fort Har­ri­son in Helena as a den­tal hygien­ist for drill. She also got some basic med­ical train­ing from basic train­ing. I like to help peo­ple if I can. I would like to get a job that helps peo­ple some­day like Melany did.

My sis­ter does some­times com­plain about being at the army base and other army stuff, but she is still involved in it because she believes in it and her­self. She has the dri­ving spirit to pur­sue great things, and I think she got some of that mind­set from being in the army. I am in my sec­ond year of my bachelor’s degree in music edu­ca­tion. I was feel­ing a lit­tle bit dis­cour­aged about my major after I fin­ished my 1st year of the pro­gram. I though about switch­ing majors if I still didn’t like it by semes­ter the end of my 1st semes­ter my sec­ond year. Through­out the fall the more and more I thought about switch­ing, the more I real­ized that I could NEVER quit music. Music is too much apart of my life, and I truly live it too much to just give up on it now. I believe in myself that I can stick it out, work hard, and keep doing Music Ed. I can relate to Melany’s feel­ings of self-confidence and ded­i­ca­tion when I am in my music classes every week. I am really going to try my best in every­thing this year. I am just try­ing to think very pos­i­tive in school, and believe that I am going to get through it all.

I love my sis­ter and I am proud of her like she is proud of me for all I have done myself. In turn, I feel more con­fi­dent and try harder at every­thing I do. Melanie ranks E4 in the Mon­tana Army National Guard, and is a team leader for Boze­man in the Honor Guard. She hon­ors her coun­try, and her posi­tion in the Army like I honor my music career. I would be noth­ing with­out either my music career or me sister.