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With what little information provided on the supposed crime committed by Zeke I don’t believe that the death penalty should be used. The reason I believe this is that according to the information supplied there is a chance that Zeke did not commit this crime and was falsely accused. It would be a V for vendetta pre revolution kind of world if Zeke was not given a fair trial and was proven to have committed the murder of the store clerk. The only way that my position could be shifted is if I was given more information about the happenings of the crime and some more prior history of Zeke. If Zeke had prior history of violence I would definitely say that it may be better for society to exercise the death penalty and not keep him around for any apparent reason.

part 2

With being for or against something there is no middle ground, which can leave people with decisions they don’t want to make. Only being able to be fully committed to one side kind of goes against what the United States of America stands for; in America there is the freedom to do most anything and many of the original immigrants came for just that reason. Being for something is much easier than being against this is because when someone is for something they are part of the majority. When the natiz party began to assume power in Germany they fought against the government  then when they assumed power every other group was fighting against them for their freedom.

RR#4

It was my junior year and I was on the annual trip to U of I where the most prestigious marching band completion for high schoolers in central Illinois is held. This competition was what we had been preparing for, this was the reason why we started having practices before the school year even started. This competition was extremely important to our band, we had won it the previous three years and we were back to defend our title; it was all I could think about of for a week. Then came the big day, everyone had to at the school for the 4:00 am departure. When everyone got to the school they were welcomed by the smell of diesel fuel from a small fleet of Macomb school busses and the overwhelming pep from our band director. After cramming ourselves into the tiny bus seats we were finally on our way to put our months of hard work to the test.
     As the sun rose and woke us form our lucid sleep hype began to build among band members, no one could wait to perform and get this final performance off our chest and not look back.  As our show time crept up on us our sense of security began to slip away and be replaced by a nervous fear, but before this feeling could set in our peppy band director reinstilled a felling of confidence with a couple bad jokes and reminding us that it is like any other performance. After getting a felling of calm restored my section leader came to me and did his little ritual where he would put his hand on our heart then our cheek and tell us “don’t suck“.
The only thing we had left was to get down to the field,  get introduced, and do what was almost ingrained in our muscle memory. As we took the field a feeling of confidence consumed me, I knew what I had to do and I had done it before, and when I walked off the field I felt a strong feeling of success. There was one small issue we wouldn’t know the results of our performance till late that evening, there was still the majority of the day ahead of us, and as the day wore on there was a general feeling of doubt going around the band because we were now watching all the other bands perform and be amazed by how well we thought they did. Then came the judgment hour our drum majors were called down to the field to receive awards for the band everyone became extremely nervous when they bean to call out the placing in our class; third place not us, second place not us, at this moment everyone is thinking surely we didn’t suck that bad, first place Macomb High School!

short story One Hot Car

When I was growing up as a child I had many toys, but the Hot Wheels cars were a personal favorite of mine. I had an insatiable want for Hot Wheels cars; I thought it was so cool how they could make such an awesome toy. So whenever I would accompany my mom on a trip to get groceries I would always try to convince her to get me at least one car. As I got older I had collected quite the collection of cars.
    But as time went on I got older, I became less attached to every car in my collection, the paint was chipping on a lot of my cars because of all the times my brother and I had slammed them together, simulating car crashes. The thin metal axles supporting the small black wheels began to bend on a countless number of cars. But despite all this abuse, I still had all my cars that I had collected over the years.
    Then came the day that my older and wiser brother came up with the magnificent idea of having some fun with the cars that no longer worked like they had when they were brand new. We both grabbed a large handful of the battered cars and headed out on the adventure that my brother had planned. Once we reached the garage my brother’s plans were made clear, no sooner then when we were through the door my brother had a can of WD-40 in one hand and a lighter in the other. Now that he had set us up with fiery combination the real fun began, it started with simply spraying the cars with a small amount of  WD-40 but the flames wouldn’t last long enough to satisfy our new found pyromaniac self, so with the flames still burning on the car we decide to reapply more WD-40, at that moment our mom walks in the door just in time to see the flames to shoot up and singe my eyebrow off.

RR How to Tell a True War Story

What define a story as true, Tim O’Brien has an idea of his own that is made clear in his piece How to Tell a True War Story. Tim O’Brien tells a series or stories, starting with the one of his friend, who was given the nickname, Rat. Rat attempts to convey in a letter, to the sister of his friend Lemon, how Lemon was a great guy. Rat begins with the fact that Lemon was a brave soldier, how he would volunteer for missions that you were very unlikely to come back from but because of his “stainless steel balls” he would make it through just fine.
     Rat then takes a slight turn for the worse and talks about how Lemon “was a little crazy”, of course everyone was a little crazy in Vietnam, but this isn’t something you tell to the grieving sister of a soldier that just died. In this letter Rat only continues to get more and more graphic talking about the real happening of war, the kind of stuff that the average person does not want to hear. Remembering all the good times that he and Lemon had together sparks a emotional response from him. He has emotional break down realizing that his best friend in Vietnam has just died and when he recovers he take on a “very sad and serious” tone reaffirming the fact that he will never be the same now that his best bud, “sole mate”, has died; making it clear that war we have to cherish what we can while it is still there.
    O’Brien then tells the of how Lemon, on a mission not even a dangerous one, dies. They were on a seemingly routine trip up into the mountains and after three days on this journey they stop to take a break and life was as usual. It was common when they were on a break for Rat and Lemon to start horsing around, to lighten their sprits, and play a game similar to hot potato  but instead of a potato they would use a harmless smoke grenade. This game was actually quiet safe no one would get hurt unless you were being just plain stupid, which was the impression that I was getting of Rat. So they play their game like normal in the shade of some tress. O’Brien then goes into an astonishing amount of detail about the environment making up the specific place they are at in Vietnam kind of foreshadowing to the events that are about to transpire. But in the way he represent the “facts” it inspires quiet beautiful imagery but it is really unclear what exactly what happens, and he also puts off making it clear what really happened until after another story.
    From O’Brien’s next little war story the only thing that was clear to me is that war, all parts of it, will mess with you and leave you changed and very rarely for the better. He goes for a wile with some various B.S. but then almost out of no where he makes a very wise almost profound statement “It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story if truly told, make the stomach believe”. This was followed by his very graphic description of what Vietnam did to the mental state of the young me who fought there. O’Brien talks about how Rat who had found a baby water buffalo began torturing it to within a inch of its life to get some kind of  relief because Lemon just died. This is the truth, this is what we need to know, this war changed people and what happened there wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t cheep.