The Perfect Life

Sample Profile Essay

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Preston Nielsen

Professor Peterson

ENGL 1010-50 Profile Essay

June 18, 2015

The Perfect Life

When most people think of the perfect life, they might imagine a beach house in the Hamptons or a mansion in Hollywood with an abundance of cars, clothes, food, butlers and assistants. Speeding through winding mountainous roads in Italy, while driving a Bentley or Aston Martin, like the playboy James Bond. Most people think of the perfect life as a worry free lifestyle that doesn’t require the need to make money or make any major decisions because, either way, it won’t alter the financial aspect of their future, they are rich.

George is wearing a charcoal gray t-shirt and blue denim jeans with a dark green and tan baseball hat. He is in his sixties with a stocky build and wide shoulders, and the tattoos coming down both of his arms lead me to wonder if he might be the type to choke out a young punk like myself if I were to make him mad enough. The eyes behind his small round glasses say otherwise. He has a gentle and welcoming way about him when he talks. He makes guests feel as if his home were more theirs, than his. His home is comfortable but far from extravagant, with some sort of cinnamon and vanilla aroma. The serene view of cows grazing in a green field with a small stream running through it accompanies his backyard. This is something appreciated by George because of the fond memories of his childhood. When asked how he is doing today, he responds, “Ah hell, if I was any better, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself!” followed by laughter. After meeting George, a person soon realizes that this guy definitely has more jokes and sarcastic remarks up his sleeves than tattoos.

Growing up in an Amish community can be tough at times. “You live strictly to the bible. The kids in town would walk by and smack you, and we had to offer the other cheek.” George explained, as he describes his childhood in Chardon, Ohio. He grew up in a very large family, and a community that used a barter system. Meaning, they didn’t really work for money to pay the bills. Most of his family would help other people with odd jobs like milking the neighbor’s cows in the morning and evening. In return, the neighbor would plow his family’s fields. This was the way of life. Their home had no running water or electricity. Cleaning the dishes and washing clothes were not done by machines. Turning the oven on and waiting five minutes for it to pre-heat for dinner wasn’t an option. Everything was done by hand, and it wasn’t done easily.

“I was not cut out to be Amish. If there is an equal sign, I have to know what’s on the other side.” George explains. Much of his childhood consisted of questions. Questions that nobody could answer. This wasn’t acceptable to George. He recalls one memory of his mother giving him a spanking because she couldn’t keep him away from the bridge. She would find him lying in the ditch next to the bridge, looking up under the cars as they drove by, trying to figure out what made them go. Curiosity in mechanics and life in general eventually got the best of him.

His decision to leave home came at the age of sixteen. The first night away from home was cold and damp, sleeping in a park. By morning, he realized there wasn’t a plan in place to get food. Actually, there wasn’t a plan in place for anything. There are no manuals on how to survive for sixteen year olds who leave Amish households in the late 1960’s. Luckily, the next day George ran into a boy by the name of Teddy, who shed light on ways to get food. “Come with me.” Teddy said, and George followed. They were walking down some side roads when a truck drove by. It was a dairy truck dropping off milk and miscellaneous things in a little box by the front door of houses. When the driver of the truck pulled away, they would sneakily run up to the box, open it up, and take a few things. That was breakfast. A day or two later, they were browsing around a doughnut shop when the owner offered them some work. The next thing they knew, they were sweeping floors in exchange for doughnuts. The kind owner let George and Teddy sleep on the benches in the entrance to his store for a few days while they plotted their next move. They collectively decided to jump a train to Buffalo, NY.

Once they got there George tells Teddy, “I can’t live like this anymore.” Teddy replies, “Why don’t you go into the military?” George was sixteen, extremely skinny, and had a 27 inch waist, which was equivalent to a size 18 boys pants. His clothing wasn’t exactly the latest fashion. This isn’t your typical jarhead, but George didn’t care. As they walked into the recruiting station, they received a daunting amount of gazes from men wondering what they were doing. When he talked to the Air Force, Army, and Navy they laughed and told him to get the hell out. On his way out, the Marine Corps recruiter said, “Son, if you can get somebody to sign that you are seventeen, I’ll take you.” George turned to Teddy and said, “Here teddy, sign this and tell them I’m seventeen.” He did, and the recruiter announced, “You’re a Marine.”

George was going to quickly find out what that statement really meant. Legally he couldn’t be shipped to Vietnam until his papers indicated he was at least eighteen years old. This meant there were eight months of training before he would be deployed. George was scared to death. He had no idea what lie before him. Over the course of eight months he was shipped from boot camp in Parris Island, to training at Camp Lejeune, where they did all the small arms and demolition training.

Eight months seemed like eight years, but the time was up. Shortly after his seventeenth birthday, in 1969, George was sent to Vietnam in the middle of the war. “We stopped in Okenawa for a little Jungle training, then we went on to Vietnam.” George recalls, “I was a replacement at the Marine Corps fire base, Khe Sanh. It was built there purely to draw fire from Laos. The whole idea was to keep those big howitzers that were in Laos, in Laos.” George explains that howitzers are big cannons. The fire base is, exactly what it’s named, a fire base. The base that was now home to George was designed to draw fire from these cannons, and prevent them from being directed toward other campaigns. The base had been overrun a few times since the war started.

When asked what it was like, George said, “It’s something men don’t like to say to each other but I can guarantee you, I shed a tear or two the first time I had to look down a gun barrel and fire a projectile at someone. I’ll never, ever allow myself to get talked into killing someone for somebody else’s benefit.” He warned. “There isn’t many days after that, no matter how long you live, that at some point during the day you don’t think of how many sons, brothers, fathers, uncles and whatever, are not going to be seen anymore by their families because of you.” As the regret creeps out of his eyes, what’s left is a strong sense of honor in the room.

The Vietnamese were constantly digging holes around the base. They would pop up at any given time and place. George was in the passenger seat of a military truck when a bomb hit the back of the truck, he was violently ejected through the front of the cab. The canvas roof was supported by a metal frame. On the flight out of the cab, his face went through the metal support. He woke up laying on the ground and remembers seeing blood and several broken bones when he looked at his body for a brief moment before losing consciousness. As a result of the explosion, he had multiple surgeries in different hospitals. His last stop was a Veterans hospital in Buffalo, NY. George said, “They had a 951 bed hospital there, and it was great. It was right across the street from the University of Buffalo. I was several floors up so whenever they had a football game, or a concert, they would wheel my bed over to the window, and jack my bed up so I could lay there and look out the window and see what was going on.” Surprisingly optimistic for a man with multiple pins and screws in his legs and feet, 8 inches of his lower spine fused together, and a broken neck. For several weeks he was strapped to a stryker bed and his nurses would turn him over a few times a day to prevent blood clotting.

He remained in the Veterans hospital for eight months, after which he went to college and then into a machinist apprenticeship where he earned his journeyman Tool and Die certificate. Since then, he has spent the greater part of his career as a mechanical engineer for multiple companies. George has never cared much for money, which he has donated, along with his time, to several charity organizations he has been involved with over the years.

The look in George’s eyes, and the mannerisms as he talks, makes me believe he really considers himself one of the luckiest people in the world. His wealth is not monetary, but in his experiences and disposition. George grew up in an extremely rugged and trying environment and had to make the hard choice of leaving his entire family at the age of 16 in the pursuit of knowledge. A year later he was blown up in a bomb during the Vietnam War resulting in injuries needing many surgeries. He was so young when he was forced to look down the barrel of a gun and either shoot, or be shot.

A question one might want to ask is, how does a man with such an unpolished life consider his life to be absolutely perfect? He says, “You know what, I would not change one thing, not one little thing in my life. I really wouldn’t. My life is like a puzzle. It has fit together so well over the years.” As he explains he wouldn’t take back being blown up in the truck that day, or any other experiences, I’m inspired. There is something George knows, that I don’t. These are the cards dealt to one man. He didn’t focus on how good or bad those cards were, instead he focused on what to do with them. That is what defines how perfect each of our lives are, not the fortune or opportunities that might come to us, but how happy we are with the fortune and opportunities that we do have.