It was a nice day outside that Friday morning when I went into Eaton High School in Eaton, Colorado. I have come to place every week for the past three years. I have met many teachers and coaches who have walked through these halls. So when I walked in that morning and saw my coach Mr. Shaw it was no big deal. He was walking down the Freshman stairs with his Blender Bottle in hand wearing a nice white dress shirt and jeans as usual. I’m sure he gave me a high-five while I was walking up the stairs and said something to make me laugh before I went to my first class of the day like always. But something was different that day. That Friday afternoon I would get the chance to meet someone I have never seen before, sergeant Chad Shaw. This sergeant …show more content…
Not only that but he was going off to serve with people “from all over the United States” (Shaw) that did things differently than maybe he did. Shaw said he was not very distraught about not being around his parents. He said, “I missed my brother, I miss my friends more than my family just because your friends are you friends. They are the people you talk to the most” (Shaw). Making new friends was the hardest thing to do. He described the tent cities that he had to live in for many years in both Panama and Haiti. There was hundreds of tents set up on a long piece of unused land and this is where the men and women ate and slept. Up to 20 people could live in one tent. Showers were limited to one every three days. “You can imagine what it's like with twenty guys all living in one tent and Haiti and Panama are both hot even in the winter and we were doing stuff all day long so it gets pretty nasty,” (Shaw) said Shaw. The food was ok. Soldiers would get up and have a good breakfast but lunch and dinner were not that great. Everybody was hungry so they ate it. The best food they would get was when family would send soldiers food. The simplest things like sunflower seeds or baked goods were the best. The culture shock was incredible just to see how different places like Haiti and Panama were. Shaw became more grateful for everything that he had back at …show more content…
His missions taught him to work hard all the time. The biggest thing Shaw learned was how to be responsible. Responsible for other people and his own actions. He learned a lot about how to work in a team and be a good team member. He has learned that people treat different situations in different ways. In America usually people talk their problems out, but where he was at the people worked things out with violence. He saw how hurtful people could be to one another. Since coming back from combat Shaw has became a teacher. He said, “the best thing when I was a sergeant was to teach the soldiers that were under me and see them learn something that they didn’t know before” (Shaw). This is what lead him to be a teacher after he came back home. He gives the advice of making sure you know what you are getting into before you decide to get into any branch of military. The change of coming back home was drastic. He felt like he had to watch his back all of the time. This went on for a few months after he had came back. Shaw realized how much all of us are protected and don’t have to worry about anything. The visual aspects of his tours stayed with him. He recalls having dreams at night about situation that he was in or witnessed. His experiences definitely stayed with him for a while after he came home. Shaw says that he would go back to war if he needed to. He even admits that after