합격통지서에 입학처장의 친필 메모가 있는 경우는 매우 드문 사례로 학생의 에세이에 대한 선호도를 입증하는데, 레슬링 관련 내용과 다음 4개의 에세이 후보 주제 중 학생 군사 교련단 군악대 일원으로 세계1차대전 순직군인을 위한 공연을 위해 벨기에로 가는 버스 여정 중 증조부에 대한 회상을 바탕으로 한 내용이었습니다. 학생 군사 교련단(cadet corps), 즉 사관학교 학생으로 한 번도 만나본 적 없는 세계1차대전 참전용사였던 증조부와 공감하는 기재와 내용이 각각 남다르며 매우 적절했죠! 2번 후보 주제 역시 남다른 잠재력이 있었지만, 3번과 4번은 매우 흔한 주제들로 권장되지 않았습니다.
- Reflections on his great grandfather during a bus ride to Belgium
- Reflections during a safety stop whilst scuba diving (스쿠버다이빙 중 안전 점검을 위해 3~5분 멈춰 있는 동안 한 회상)
- Adopting a dog at our local animal shelter (동물 보호소에서의 강아지 입양)
- His different passports (he is a triple-citizen) and how they indirectly reflect the different parts of him (3중 국적자로서 3개의 여권과 주체성)
I am tired as the coach rolls along the last part of its journey towards Ypres in Western Belgium. We boarded nearly 10 hours ago, and have already driven through England and France. The coach is comfortable, but as the sun hits the side of my face through the window I am infused with the lethargy of travel. My bag is stowed below, and contains my cadet corps marching band uniform and my flute. Shortly I will put on that uniform, and we will march through Ypres toward the Menin Gate, playing with somber formality to commemorate the fallen from World War I.
As the green fields roll lazily by punctuated with white farmhouses, I try to imagine the events of the Great War. The books talk of the trenches, and the mud, and the disease. Shells falling, the fear of gas, tangled barbed wire. Fear, cold and hunger. And death; so much death. But the idea of war in Europe seems impossibly remote to me on a warm, sunny September day. The idea of a hundred thousand men dying in a single week is just a number in a history book with no meaning. The misery and squalor of the trenches is just a story.
I adjust my position in my seat and look at my iPod. I change the song to John McDermott’s “Green Fields of France”, and I listen as he sings about “a whole generation that were butchered and damned”. I try to think back 100 years.
I think about a young man. He is about three years older than I am, and he has been called up to the front. He is my great grandfather. I never met him; he died a quarter of a century before I was born. I have never even seen a picture of him. But I try to imagine his own journey towards Ypres. He is probably on a train. He will be wearing a khaki British military uniform that he was recently given. It is probably uncomfortable, although not as uncomfortable as it will be once it becomes soaked with rain and mud.
Like me, he will be travelling amongst his contemporaries. Whilst my fellow band members silently listen to music through earbuds or play games on their mobile phones, I expect his fellow soldiers were talking, laughing nervously, smoking and fiddling with their equipment. I am sure he must be scared. He will have known many friends who were sent to fight. He will know some are never coming back.
I wonder if he feels conflicted because his own father was born in Germany. Probably not. I know his father died when he was a young boy, and he was raised by his English mother. I expect he feels the same sense of patriotism as the other young men around him. The same sense of moral certainty about the rightness of fighting for king and for country.
His own kit bag is probably similar in size to mine. But I carry a flute, and he carried a rifle. Does he think about having to kill a man? Does he finger his gas mask nervously? Does he look at his bayonet and imagine affixing it tightly and going over the top? He doesn’t know it, but he will never get the chance. He will arrive at the front on Friday November 8th, 1918. After just three days in the trenches, Germany will sign the Armistice.
My coach comes to a stop in the parking lot and there is a hiss as the pneumatic brakes are applied. I stretch in my seat and wait to clamber off and see where we will change into uniform. When we march and play the small crowd will remember the fallen. But I will also be thinking of one young man who was able to come home.
I adjust my position in my seat and look at my iPod. I change the song to John McDermott’s “Green Fields of France”, and I listen as he sings about “a whole generation that were butchered and damned”. I try to think back 100 years.
I think about a young man. He is about three years older than I am, and he has been called up to the front. He is my great grandfather. I never met him; he died a quarter of a century before I was born. I have never even seen a picture of him. But I try to imagine his own journey towards Ypres. He is probably on a train. He will be wearing a khaki British military uniform that he was recently given. It is probably uncomfortable, although not as uncomfortable as it will be once it becomes soaked with rain and mud.
Like me, he will be travelling amongst his contemporaries. Whilst my fellow band members silently listen to music through earbuds or play games on their mobile phones, I expect his fellow soldiers were talking, laughing nervously, smoking and fiddling with their equipment. I am sure he must be scared. He will have known many friends who were sent to fight. He will know some are never coming back.
I wonder if he feels conflicted because his own father was born in Germany. Probably not. I know his father died when he was a young boy, and he was raised by his English mother. I expect he feels the same sense of patriotism as the other young men around him. The same sense of moral certainty about the rightness of fighting for king and for country.
His own kit bag is probably similar in size to mine. But I carry a flute, and he carried a rifle. Does he think about having to kill a man? Does he finger his gas mask nervously? Does he look at his bayonet and imagine affixing it tightly and going over the top? He doesn’t know it, but he will never get the chance. He will arrive at the front on Friday November 8th, 1918. After just three days in the trenches, Germany will sign the Armistice.
My coach comes to a stop in the parking lot and there is a hiss as the pneumatic brakes are applied. I stretch in my seat and wait to clamber off and see where we will change into uniform. When we march and play the small crowd will remember the fallen. But I will also be thinking of one young man who was able to come home.
