essay

• Personal Reflective Essay
• 500-750 Words
• Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to write your own “This I Believe” essay. Choose a value or believe that you feel strongly about. You are responsible for clearly describing and defining this value/belief, and for providing a specific story or example from your own experience that illustrates its importance to you. Your essay must be formatted according to MLA requirements.
• Write an essay that clearly presents and develops main ideas
• Present and develop convincing evidence and support
• you can see some examples of 2 “This I Believe” essays to have an idea on how to compose it 

Theme: War

“This I Believe,” by Joshua

Link: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/94931/

I believe that sometimes one must take a life in order to save others. In every great religion “thou shall not kill” or some estranged variation is found. What does that mean for me? I am a former corporal in the United States Marine Corps and I proudly served in Iraq. I have taken many lives and I wonder now must I pay for my sins?

I was in Baghdad in late 2004 sitting at a guard post outside of F.O.B. (forward operating base) Falcon. We had a frequent visitor there that we called Tango Tot. Tango stood for terrorist and it was our own version of Vietnams “Charlie”. We called him tot because he was only 8 or 9 years old. He would come and visit us every day and smoke cigarettes with us. You would think 8 is too young to smoke but I recall a conversation I had with him one day when he held up his cigarette and said, “This little thing won’t be what kills me here.” I thought of how profound that was for such a small boy. He used to carry around this deflated soccer ball and he would kick its limp body across the ground and yell out in joy, “Look at me, George Bush, very good American, I play soccer.” We would all laugh and have a good old time. Then one day he approached our gate and his ball was missing. I remember it was an extra sandy day and I could see the clean trails left behind from where tears fell from his eyes.

“Where’s your ball Tot?” I yelled out to him. He just shook his head and began weeping again. Immediately I noticed how bulky he appeared and turned to my Gunnery Sergeant for direction. “Gunny!?” I requested.

“Take him out Class!”

I turned without hesitation to this small boy and raised my M-16A4 service rifle and did what we Marines called a failure drill, two in the chest and one in the head. I walked up in a daze to his now lifeless body disregarding the yells coming from behind me. I picked up his Arab garb and saw the suicide vest strapped to his tiny frame. I replaced his blouse and looked upon his little face and wondered, whom do I answer to for this? How ironic is it that this same boy told me that a cigarette wouldn’t be the thing to kill him, I wonder if somewhere in his mind he knew that in a few days I would be the one to end his short life. People tell me that killing is wrong, but what about the ten plus fathers that were at the gate that day? Do I get credit for saving their lives, or do I get credit for taking the life of a small child that was a victim of circumstance? I suppose I’ll find out when life gives me my own failure drill.

2

Neil

We Only Have Each Other

I believe that we only have each other. As an atheist, by definition I believe that there is no god. This can be a scary concept, because at times, it seems like there’s no one to watch out for us. This is where my belief comes in. I was probably about sixteen years old when I realized that I don’t believe in any sort of divine power. At that point, a lot of things changed. I started to analyze the way I thought and evaluate all of the things that I believed in. Suddenly I had complete freedom over what I deemed right and wrong. If there was no one to judge me, then I did not have to live a life of compassion and care. It seemed that living a selfish life would be both easy and rewarding because there would be no dire consequences for my self-centered actions.

It turned out that I was wrong on both accounts: being completely egocentric was neither simple nor satisfying. Although I had believed that keeping my mind focused solely on my own well-being would garner greater rewards, something always pushed me towards caring about other people. When others asked me favors, my first instinct was to oblige them. I found myself drawn towards volunteering to help people that I didn’t have any direct connection with. I developed an authentic interest in looking at the problems of our world and wanting to be a part of the solution. I realized that my intrinsic nature led me to care about others around me, even though no greater power was forcing me to.

Once I understood this, I recognized that this fundamental drive to improve humankind’s condition was greater than myself. It is this force that has created so many of the great things that we get to enjoy today. Our world could not have been built to where it is now if our most deep-seated desire was to only help ourselves and carelessly leave others to fend for themselves. I know now that human beings have accomplished so many incredible things because we are able to rely on each other to show compassion and push towards a common good. We do this not because any higher power demands it; rather, we do it because it is at the core of what makes us human.

I often still find myself debating in my mind between the path of the egocentric or the altruistic, but this innermost belief that we all must care about one another always pushes me towards compassion. It is this principle that I hope will guide me through the rest of my life. I believe that as humans, our fate is up to us. Each one of us has the power to work towards improving our world through solicitous actions or destroying it with self-serving goals. I believe that there is no god watching over humanity to ensure that all goes well. The only one looking out for us is each other, and I like to believe that we’re in good hands.