5/4/2018 0 Comments So What?!?! The book I read for this project is called Horse Soldiers as I have said in previous blogs. The book is about the extraordinary bravery and battles of the Afghanistan war, specifically one where the Special Forces soldiers in my book are heavily outnumbered, and they fight on Horseback to win!
My book ends with the battling at strategic locations for the recapture of the entire country of Afghanistan. At the end the American Special forces troops along with their Afghanistan friends, who also happen to be soldiers of some major Afghanistan Warlords. These final battles consist of air strikes, foot soldier battles, and lots of supplies and first aid. In traveling they also see the devastation caused by Taliban troops coming through. The things they saw were awful and would be horrible to witness. Things like bodies on the roads, burning houses, mass destruction all around. This story is still going on today as well. The fight on Terrorism is still going on in today’s society and still in Afghanistan too. So these men’s stories are still not yet finished... My book matters because it shows all that our Military does for our country and for other struggling countries. It shows all that our soldiers go through in their fighting and even how their families struggle and are affected. We see how much goes on ‘behind the scenes’ of major battles and engagements, the inner struggle of killing another man. It matters because we should know and really take into full appreciation of what these men do. I feel that the most valuable idea or takeaway of my book is that these men are HEROES. Not only that they are heroes on the battlefield, they are also husbands and fathers. Many of these characters families have made great sacrifices too, just in living knowing that their husbands or dads may never come back. A quote from my book to show this is “Warrior/Father, Warrior/Father, Father. He pushed open the door and kissed Maggie. I will do anything to protect this place, he thought”. Doug Stanton, Horse Soldiers, page 31. This book is still valuable because it educates us on the past successes and failures against Terrorism, and how we can learn. It also educates us on how hard these men work and what they do for us and our country. So its important for education and to help us understand the sacrifices of these men and women in our military.
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4/25/2018 9 Comments Current day events Connection The book I am currently reading is called Horse Soldiers, it is about the Afghanistan war and fighting the terrorism there. The Afghanistan war was all started because of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which were planned and carried out by a terrorist group called Al-Qaeda. This group was run by Osama Bin Laden, who was a very dangerous man and wanted by the United States Government. After Al-Qaeda was asked to hand him over they refused and so started the hunt and war on them and the Taliban. This is essentially what is going on in my book. My book tells the story of some Special Forces troops sent to Afghanistan to combat these men, and it tells of the bravery and horrors that they experienced. Everything from flying a helicopter into battle, to taking out targets and cells of terrorists.
A story now in our current day that relates and connects to the events in my book is the current war on terror, that the United States is fighting in many stretches of the World. Currently in the United States we are combating terror in many areas, many of which in the Middle East region of the world, places like Iraq, Syria and still Afghanistan even though it may surprise you. The current President of the United States is President Trump, and he has troops fighting to get rid of these terrorists. Specifically groups like the taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and even more. We are also trying to get rid of Communism and restore the former governments of these countries. As much fighting in the Middle East as we are doing, we are also doing lots of Humanitarian aid for those affected by the war. We are running food and water there, and giving first aid in some cases, and trying to provide aid for those who had chemical weapons on them. We are also taking in refugees from these areas. Now here is the connection between the book and the current events going on. Both are based on the fight against terrorism and getting people safer and making sure that there are no repeats of 9/11, a day that will live in infamy because of the awful things that happened. The events also connect because of the United States sending troops overseas to fight and keep us safe. The troops have been fighting for so long in the Middle East, ever since 2001. Events are connected also by the groups we are fighting against. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda are still around and we are still trying to fight them and put an end to their free reign over the people in the Middle East. They are connected by the people that they affect, the Middle East is so war torn and everyone is affected by it, even one sour apple spoils the bunch in a sense. It all starts with one getting occupied and overthrown by bad guys before others start to fall. These are all of the reasons I believe my book and these current day events are related and connected in a very big way. In my book Horse Soldiers, the story is about the Afghanistan war, which takes place from 2001- present time, specifically operation Enduring Freedom. At the time of the story President Bush is in power and he is the one calling all of the shots. Essentially the start of this war is the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Where two airplanes flew into the twin towers and another into the pentagon. One other plane got hijacked but failed to hit its target due to rebellion from passengers.
Only days after the attacks, America declares war on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The attacks on our country was orchestrated by terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. President Bush sent troops overseas to Afghanistan to fight these terrorist cells and to save American lives. This is where my book’s story comes in, there are some Special Ops soldiers who fight this specific battle where they are outnumbered 40 to 1. They fight bravely to save their country against some very tough enemies, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. “Besides, these guys didn’t surrender. They fought to the death. Die fighting and you went to paradise”. This is why their enemy fought so hard, they want a paradise. The people around the conflict are very scared, because of the guerrilla warfare and constant threat of fighting in their neighborhood. They could very easily get caught in the crossfire, even with the Rules of Engagement put in place by our Government. They don’t really like these terrorists at any stretch but people also don’t love a bunch of foreign armies coming in firing weapons. Soldiers take pride in their work, because they protect our country, so they are sometimes scared as any man and woman would be. But they are also confident, and strong. All of this to show all of the many connections between the events of my book, and how many it tied to. 1/31/2018 0 Comments Community Service ProjectPollution in our Community
Introduction Pollution is a large issue in the world today. The many gases factories release into the atmosphere are hurting our environment. Whether the effects of the pollution are visible or not they affect our air supply and the health of many. Wake County received a grade of “D” for ozone pollution. While the grade went up from a “F” to a “D” the air quality is still poor. Adding to the air pollution there are excessive amounts of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides emissions in the air surrounding Wake County. According to a document we read it said that “The level of PCBs in Crabtree Creek, Brier Creek, Walnut Creek and the parts of the Neuse River in Wake County are so high that you should not eat the fish.” Sorg, Lisa. 2014. There is also large amounts of pollution in our soil and water here in Wake County. Many water treatment plants dump over their allotment of wastewater and chemicals into water sources. While there are fines going along with these violations, they have not stopped the violations from continuing. Many creeks in Wake County have so much pollution and runoff in them, that it is not safe to eat the fish from them. Many people need to be made aware of pollution and its effects upon the environment. Though we cannot make large improvements, we can still help the cause. By cleaning up trash and debris in parks and rivers, we can better our environmental situation. The world is polluted and we can fix it, so lets all come together and make our world a cleaner and better place! The Issue The issue with pollution is affecting people worldwide. We specifically are the 142nd most polluted city in the nation. That might not seem like a huge problem, but considering the amount of cities in the United States, us being 142nd is pretty bad. The American Lung Association said that there were unhealthy levels of ozone pollution in the triangle. This is bad because it affects the air quality here, so people will be breathing in pollutants which can do severe damage to your lungs and airways. Things that cause our environment to get “sicker” are trash like plastics that get discarded poorly and float away into the air. Another thing that usually gets let go of are balloons that are filled with helium, which can hit something extremely hot or sharp, pop from compression and the remaining plastic float into bodies of water or just land on the ground and stay there for a very long amount of time, or the balloon becomes deflated and floating to the ground then to be eaten by an animal killing it by getting stuck in their throat or digestive tract. The reason I talk so much about plastics is because plastics can’t go away. See, plastics are made from a material that doesn’t naturally decompose, making the plastic object, whatever it may be, everlasting. Unless they are burned, which is also bad for the environment because while the plastic melts, it emits very strong and dangerous chemicals into the air, causing the air to slowly start to become unbreathable. This might be more of a minor problem, but it can still cause a great deal of slow, but sure destruction. The thing that I’m talking about is sediments. Some sediments are problems because they have a dangerous effect on things like water. For example Flint, Michigan has an ongoing problem with lead from old pipes contaminating the water that they use for sustenance. This is causing the people a lot of problems, like forcing most to move out of the vicinity of where the water flows to taps. “There have also been a lot of people who have been throwing trash into sewers making them completely filthy” City of Raleigh, 2017. Solution By picking up trash, we create a better and cleaner environment. We are also reducing air and water pollution, which saves wildlife and makes our parks look good as new. Also, ultimately we are reducing climate change and global warming, even if it's only by a little bit. Picking up litter is not the only way we can save the planet. There are many ways to reduce pollution. A really successful way to reduce pollution is to conserve energy. You can do this by turning off lights, computers, and other electronics. Another way to reduce air pollution is to use energy efficient light bulbs and other electric appliances. Another good way is to rely on solar power rather fossil fuels. It’s very good for the environment and it’s cheaper. Not only does doing all of that reduce air pollution, it helps wildlife. Over one hundred thousand sea mammals die each year because of water pollution, and those numbers are rising dramatically. We can help decline those numbers by cleaning up at your local beach, or cleaning up a lake. Even if you only clean up one small lake a little bit, it will really improve the aquatic life. To help out wildlife on the land, we can go around the local parks and look for any litter and dispose of it. Animals could eat it and get sick so this is really helping them out. Conclusion There are several ways that we can help our community, that will eventually clean our community and make it more desirable to live in. We personally can go and clean up a local park one day and pick up some trash. We can conserve energy by pledging to turn off lights at home, not leaving the water running and by taking some shorter showers. This helps us to not overuse water, and to keep our environment clean. By turning off lights you can conserve energy therefore not polluting the environment and requiring less pollution by energy providers. I also propose that we take some students out and pick up trash, or make the park really clean. This would eliminate some of the pollution that is in the park, and make it all clean. To help with this issue we propose the idea of going to a local park to clean up trash. We will go to a local park and clean up multiple bags of trash to make the park cleaner and more pleasant to look at and play in. Specifically at Laurel Hills park or Jaycee park, one with high foot traffic. To get all of the supplies we will buy some heavy duty lawn waste bags and several boxes of gloves to successfully and safely clean the park. We also will need several parents to volunteer to help being chaperones on the trip. The requirements of getting to volunteer are simple. Filling out some paperwork/permission forms to go to the parks, and some safety release forms, and release forms that the volunteers must fill out, but that is it. To get transportation we can go and get some money from the eighth grade fund, and or have each student bring in 5 dollars to pay for the bus. We would hope to do this on June sixth in the early afternoon or morning so the heat would not be too bad, and we can work easily into lunchtime. Some important info you may need and or want to know is that we already have someone willing to partner with us and help us to clean up the parks. They work for Raleigh Parks and Rec. and they have given us a lot of information on things we can do and are willing to partner with us. We may need some money from the eighth grade fund for this but that would be it, and it is a fairly simple project in terms of supplies. We only need trash bags, gloves and possibly trash spikes but that is it. And finally our goals for this project are to collect ten bags total of trash and waste we find in the parks. We want to make a noticable difference in how the parks look and how they feel when you go. All we want to do in this project is to make the parks more enjoyable and nice to look at for all of the families that go there so that everyone gets a pleasurable experience, and wants to come back. We want at least 40 volunteers to go along to maximize our trash pick up and our expanse we can cover. We hope to make this a wonderful project and one that will succeed and make our community fun and clean once more. Works Cited Sorg, Lisa. “Polluted waterways in Raleigh, Statewide.” Indy Week. Feb. 19 2014. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/polluted-waterways-in-raleigh/Content?oid=3855999>. Horton, Liz. “Report shows North Carolina air quality is unhealthy.” abc 11 EYEWITNESS NEWS. Apr. 21 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <http://abc11.com/weather/report-shows-north-carolina-air-quality-is-unhealthy /1301308/> “Wake County, NC Environmental Health statistics.” Health Grove. 2018. Jan. 23 2018. <http://environmental-health.healthgrove.com/l/2036/Wake-County-NC> “Protecting Streams from water pollution.” City of Raleigh. Nov. 17 2017. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.raleighnc.gov/environment/content/PWksStormwater/Articles/ WaterPollution.html> “Air pollution: A Global Problem.” Research Applications Laboratory. Apr. 14 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <https://ral.ucar.edu/pressroom/features/air-pollution-a-global-problem> “What you can do about Pollution prevention.” P2 resources for concerned citizens. May. 17 2017. Jan. 23 2018. <https://www.epa.gov/p2/what-you-can-do-about-pollution- prevention> “Solutions” Clean Air Carolina. 2016. Jan. 23 2018. <https://cleanaircarolina.org/learn/solutions/> 1/14/2018 0 Comments Community IssuesThese days there are several community issues we face, but one of the biggest issues is crime in public places. Just in the past few weeks and days there have been multiple muggings and robberies, even shootouts. For example, a lady was robbed right in front of a Food Lion the other day and a lot of her stuff was stolen. There was also a Police station shoot out the other day, where one officer got injured and they had to track down the suspect. And there are plenty more scenarios like this that happen that may not even make it to the news. The reason I find this issue interesting is because I am legitimately concerned for how our society is starting to function. We are turning to violence, where we should look for others to give us help. I want our society to be safe, and I myself want to feel safe in the place that I live. Some people may live in fear because of all of the violence and domestic issues that we face in today’s culture. People are affected by these issues by being very nervous or afraid when they are in a public place. They may not ever want to go out and they may live in constant fear of people in the public. People who actually get involved (the victims) may get hurt, and then it will take them a while to recover and to get over their traumatic experience. People who commit these types of crimes may end up with jail time or in the worse cases, dead. I feel that other people should care about this issue too for several reasons: One of them being that you would hate to have this same thing happen to yourself or one of your friends, second this is a big issue that can affect everyone. Finally I feel that we can solve this in a few ways. For example, highly populated areas may need extra security to ensure safety for everyone, and adding extra cameras would ensure that if an issue happened, you may be able to see who the suspect and or perpetrator is and be able to find them and get justice. This is what I feel we need to prevent these issues from happening further. 1/4/2018 0 Comments This I Believe I did a lot of thinking before I got to this topic, and now I know what I truly believe. I believe that Friends and family should and will always be there to support you in times of struggle and need and are a major part of your life, even if you don’t want to admit it. Friends and family have a very big impact on us, and shape who we are. They help us grow up, help us learn, help us with everything we could ever want and need. The story I want to tell is one about my birthday, that really shows how much friends and family are important to me.
It all started the morning of my birthday and I woke up to my dog lying next to me and not barking (which almost never happens) and so it all started out ok. I took out my dog with my feet dragging the ground. I heard footsteps coming down the steps as I was lying on the couch. My mom then proceeded to come down and she turned out to be sick, which is the first not so good thing that happened that day. My dad came down a few minutes later and it being my birthday asked if I could open some presents. But unfortunately I had already gotten a tennis racket and a sweatshirt a little bit earlier that week and month, so they said that I had basically already gotten all of my gifts. So at that point I was kind of sad because I had no gifts to look forward to opening that day, (which is a little bit selfish I know but that’s what all of us do) so I moped up to my room to take my shower. I was very bored after that because I had nothing to do, so I just went and watched some tv and played on my PS4. An hour or two later I went downstairs to see that my brother was finally home from his sleepover the night before. Then the first thing that shows how friends and family are the greatest comes, and it is simple but it still meant a lot. And that is one of my buddies called me to wish me a happy birthday which started to make me feel better. I had also been getting a lot of texts and instagram shoutouts which made me feel good like ‘hey people remembered my birthday!’ and so I was starting to cheer up a little bit more. Then my mom decided even though she was sick she was going to take me out to eat at Chick-fil-a which is one of my favorite restaurants which made me really happy. Just after I came back from eating one of my friends texted me asking me if I wanted to come over for a while and I was like, yeah! So at about 4 o’clock I went on over and as soon as he opened the door a few of my other friends jump out and yell surprise. And I was pleasantly surprised! I had no idea that my friends were going to do this and this really made my day. We went in his house and ate some cupcakes and then just went outside and played with his adorable dog and talked for like an hour. After that the other people left and it was just me and him, so we decided to go and chill and play some NBA 2k. We talked about everything, whether it is serious or just plain silly. It helps to be able to talk about some things with your friends because they are sometimes able to relate more. It helps to be able to talk about some things with your friends because they are sometimes able to relate. At about 5:30 or 6 o’clock my parents came to pick me up and we ate some really good chicken wings for dinner. After dinner we ate some cake and we went trick or treating since it was Halloween. Now getting to the application of this story. I started out having a bit of a crappy day, but my friends and family helped to make it even better then I thought it would turn out. Friends cheer you up and help you to get through hard times. They can relate a lot more than your family sometimes because they aren’t making decisions that your family may make and may add a new perspective, and they are your age so they can relate more. But your family may be able to help more sometimes as well, this is because you go through these things with them. This is why I believe that friends and family should and will always be there to support you in times of struggle and need and are a major part of your life, even if you don’t want to admit it. And I believe that everyone also believes this somewhere in their heart, however deep it may be hidden. |
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