This summer I took a design class in the Mercyhurst Pre-Summer session. I was one of the few people that took this class for a major requirement and the rest of the students basically needed three more credits in order to graduate. Naturally, these students were not really gifted when it came to creativity, but the teacher handled it really well. However, one student (an adult student, and I'm not discriminating, because I'm an adult student myself) didn't really accept that he can't get an A for something that isn't that well done. So, one day when the teacher wasn't in the room, he told the rest of the class, that he thinks that the teacher doesn't treat him right. When he asked him what he meant by that, he answered that he used to fight in the Iraq War as an army soldier and that because he risked his life in it, he should be treated way better than ordinary people and therefore should receive all A's in every assignment.
Now, my cousin used to be a soldier too and he was in Iraq and Afghanistan and I told him about this ex soldier's opinion. My cousin said that he never even thought about himself as being special because of that and that he hates people who make such a ridiculous difference between themselves and non-soldiers. I'm glad that he reacted that way, because I never thought that soldiers are anyhow different than regular people. However, I have a high respect for people who go into the war and risk their lives for their country, because I know I would have a very hard time with it, but I do not think that this should effect the way that they are being treated when it comes to normal life that is not related to the war. There are even many people who do want to join the military but are not accepted, maybe because of a medical problem. Does that make them less valuable in life than the soldiers? According to that adult student, yes!
Here is an example of a soldier that probably should not be given such a higher value in life:
I know that war is terrible and usually people behave differently in times of war, but it doesn't seem like the soldiers in the video are afraid to be killed in that situation. So why does such a person deserve more respect than any "civilian" in normal life? I hope that there are not too much more soldiers who think the way that this adult student thought...
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2 comments:
i feel like i have more respect for an American soldier but i do not believe that they deserve special treatment. They have done this country a great service and for that I will always be grateful. But there are great services done by people every day, not to such an extent, but none of them feel like they should be treated any differently and I don't believe soldiers should be.
Wow, what a horrible and vain thing to say about yourself as a representative of our country. If I had been in that class I would have been so offended, not only by what he said but also for the things that we other students work so hard on. That's crazy and I agree with Richard. There are people in this country that do honorable things every single day. As a close friend of a cop and his family of cops, I'm angered that someone would think that something they did for our country and our freedom deserves an automatic A. Yes, the freedoms we enjoy are never free, and respect is deserved, but expecting an A for an unworthy assignment is in another ballpark. Unbelievable.
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