Personal Narrative: An Interview With A Veteran

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Pages: 3

The definition of a veteran is an experienced soldier or an ex-soldier as well as a member of the armed forces who has been in active service. But in my opinion, a veteran has an abundance more of importance. A Veteran whether active duty, discharged, retired, or reserve is someone who at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check to their country for an amount of up to and including their life. They put an immense amount of time and effort into training and protecting their country. The name of the veteran interviewed is Vinny D’Alessandro. Vinny was in a special force known as the Bersagliere in Italy. He trained for a laborious eighteen months at the time of the Korean War between 1952-1953. I have known Vinny for several years …show more content…
Although he had many jobs and responsibilities, watching for enemies, and finding out if anything happened were his main obligations. His extensive training had many different aspects but one of his main focal points was running. His daily routine consisted of waking up at six o’clock in the morning, taking a shower and running for about fifteen km which translates into ten miles! To add to this exhausting amount, he also had to run on his toes. Other training methods included running up mountains to help lungs adjust to the different altitudes, shooting with guns, driving motorcycles through hoops, and driving special tanks around. Vinny experienced many positive and negative aspects from being a Bersagliere. One specific example that was frightening for him was while he and a lieutenant practiced driving on a tank, they accidentally drove into a ditch and got stuck with the tank on top of him and his friend! Somehow, both of them managed to escape. Although Vinny took the blame for the incident, (which was not his fault) instructors found out he kept silent to protect his friend and he got rewarded to go back home to his family for one month for his