A very good place to start

When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a memory narrative about the house I grew up in. It made it into the literary publication at the end of the year, but my English teacher told me that though it was well-written, it lacked depth.

I don't have it anymore, but it was something like this:

When my parents got married, they saved and saved and after about three years made three major purchases: a house, the grand piano that took up about 1/8 of its floorspace, and a giant chandalier that hung over the piano.

The piano took up most of the living room, but over the years it was joined by an organ, a synthesizer, and several giant speakers, one of which was in the fireplace. There was a couch and a chair too, so people had somewhere to sit to listen to the music.

The little backyard had a swing set, eight fruit trees, a strawberry patch until it died under our sleds one winter, and a vegetable garden. I ate store-bought canned goods for the first time a couple years after we moved and Mom's bottled stuff ran out.

In the narrative I continued to expound upon the ways that house had inspired me to be industrious and creative, and concluded that I was grateful for my blessings or something. I knew it lacked depth, but what else was there to say?

That year we watched Desert Storm on Channel One before first period. Anderson Cooper was one of the anchors. I think that was also the year some American kids got caned for keying cars in Singapore.

Some years later, I made friends with Sara Stinnett in choir. She had joined the Army between Junior and Senior year - so cool. We started jogging and doing push-ups together after school, and I found out I could be a journalist for the military. Basic training was in Texas and the journalism training school was in Maryland! I was going to take two plane rides, and I was going to go to the East Coast. To be a journalist. OMG hadn't been invented yet, but you get the idea.

In Texas a year later, at Lackland Air Force Base, I had done something, I can't remember what, that prompted our Basic Training Instructor to let me ask him any question I wanted during mail-call. I don't know if they still do this, but at the time, mail-call was a time when the TI could be less formal.

Contemplate as I might, the only thing I could think of asking was whether he played any musical instruments, but that would be weird, so I asked, "You seem like a nice guy. Why did you decide to be a TI?"

He was genuinely surprised, not in a pleased way- I remember the look on his face- but he quickly shouted, "Gale!"

Damn it. "Sergeant, Trainee Gale reports, what, Sergeant?"

"I let you ask any question you want and that's all you can come up with!"

I didn't reply because I didn't know what to say, I was so embarassed.

He shook his head and looked me in the eyes, but didn't say anything. Finally, after he was finished passing out all the mail and giving us the next day's schedule, he settled in his chair.

"How many of you think you'll never go to war?"

Of course none of us raised our hands.

"No, I'm serious. Okay, how many of you are thinking in your heads, 'I need to pay attention, I might be fighting next to these guys someday?' Any of you?"

I thought- well, hopefully we're not just learning how to fold a sports bra into a perfect square. But I kept my hand down.

"Some of you are going into security forces. Some of you are going into softer career fields- accounting, services. Journalism. I am not here to train accountants and cooks and journalists. I am here to train United States Airmen."

I can't remember what he said his career field had been when he was called up to Desert Storm, but he was not expecting that kind of war. He was also, he told us through clenched teeth before he started crying, not expecting to see his best friends killed right next to him. We were Airmen, we needed to remember that. That was why he became a TI.

That was actually the last time he talked with us; he got pulled to shape up an unravelling male flight a few days later.

I wrote home that night, to Summer, and I told her that I missed being able to just be with people I loved. I remember lying in my bed with tears pooling in my ears. I think that night I began to achieve depth.