A Band Of Brothers essays

A Band Of Brothers essays This book takes the reader on a great journey, one filled with excitement and sadness. The reader is a rifleman in Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army, the greatest rifle company in the world. It all starts at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, then escalates to D-Day (Their first combat jump), and then to Hitlers Eagles Nest at Berchtesgaden. Basic Training at Fort Toccoa was the toughest BT in the Armed Forces. At Toccoa, they took in baby-faced recruits and turned them into lean, mean killing machines. Each of the 140 men and 7 officers who had come to Ft. Toccoa had either been an athlete or a hunter in high school. Toccoa was so tough that many of the OFFICERS didnt make it through there. The instructors in Georgia were very tough on these men. They knew that they had to be in supreme physical condition, or else they would never survive. To get these men in top physical condition, the drill sergeants ran the men up and down a hill that they called Currahee (Indian for We stand alone.) This hill was 3 miles up and 3 miles back. The men ran this hill at least once a day, if not twice. By the time the men shipped out of Georgia 8 weeks later, they were in the best fighting shape of their lives. On the night of June 6, 1944, the men from Easy Company loaded up into 8 c-47 carrier planes. Flying over Normandy, many planes were hit and began to go down, so men had to jump from 250 feet while going 150 miles an hour. When they actually hit the ground, many of the men could not find their gear and had to sometimes make do with just a field knife. As the men landed, (they were scattered about 5 miles apart, as the planes had been blown off course by the Anti-Aircraft fire.) they tried to group together in bands and make their way to the rallying point. Many men were killed, because they would accidentally walk right into a German ma ...

The Dominican Republic Essays - Greater Antilles, Free Essays

The Dominican Republic Essays - Greater Antilles, Free Essays The Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic is one of the many Spanish speaking countries in the world. The Dominican Republic, republic of the West Indies, compromising the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola. The word Dominican Republic in Spanish means Republica Dominicana. The capitol of the Dominican Republic is Santo Domingo. The population of the Dominican Republic is of mixed Spanish and black-African descent. The society is about sixty five percent urban. The population of the Dominican Republic in 1995 was about seven million, nine hundred and fifteen thousand (7,915,000) people. This gives the country a population density of about one hundred sixty two person per square kilometer. The Dominican Republic is divided into twenty nine provinces plus the Distrito Nacional . It also includes the capital of the Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo. Each province is subdivided into municipalities and townships. Some important cities are Santo Domingo, Santiago de los Caballlereos, San Pedro de Macrois. Santo Domingo is the leading port and has an estimated population of two million and four hundred thousand (2,400,000) persons. Santiago de los Caballeros is a trade and transportation center with a population of half a million people. San Pedro de Macoris, a seaport has a population of seventy eight thousand and five hundred sixty two(78,562) persons. The Dominican Republic consists of mainly Spanish speakers. Spanish is the official language of the Dominica Republic. English is also spoken and a French dialect is spoken. The religion of the Dominican Republic mostly Roman Catholicism. There is small Protestant community and some are Spiritists. The Dominican Republic has a length of in an east to west direction of about three hundred eighty kilometers and a maximum width, in the west, of about two hundred sixty five kilometers. The frontier with Haiti is about three hundred fifteen kilometers long. The Dominican also have possession to many islands. Such islands as Beata and Saona. The Dominican Republic is a very fertile land, well watered and very mountainous. About eighty percent of the country is covered with a series of mountain ranges, extending in a northwestern to southeastern direction. The most fertile region is in the Valley of Cibao and the coastal plains are also very fertile. The Dominican Republic has many rivers and streams. The Dominican Republic has a semitropical climate. Temperatures of more than seventy four degrees Fahrenheit are registered in the lowlands throughout the year. During the summer months temperatures range from eighty to ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the lowlands. The highland are much cooler and receive about sixty inches of precipitation each year. The wet season is from June to November. Tropical Hurricanes occur occasionally. The main resources of the Dominican Republic is mainly agriculture. The fertile soil is instrumental to farming and many of the mountains are covered with forests. The country also has valuable deposits of nickel, gold and silver. The Dominican Republic?s vegetation is much like that of the other islands of the West Indies. The vegetation varies and luxuriant. Among the many species of indigenous trees are mahogany, rosewood and pine. Many species of useful plants and fruits are common, including rice, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, yams, banana, pineapple and grapes. The history of the Dominian Republic starts at the aboriginal inhabitants of Hispaniola were Arawak people, engaged principally in farming and fishing. They eventually became extinct as a result of exploitation by Spanish colonists. Black slaves were later imported to take the place of the Arawak. In time the Spanish migrated from Hispaniola to South America, and for about a century the island was sparsely populated. In 1697, by the Peace of Ryswick, the portion of Hispaniola that had been occupied by French adventurers was formally ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue; it is now Haiti. The remaining Spanish section, what is now the Dominican Republic, was called Santo Domingo. In 1795, Spain finally ceded Santo Domingo to France. During the years that followed, the country was caught up in the convulsions of neighboring Haiti, as well as indigenous mixed-race and black people. When Haiti removed the French in 1804, Santo Domingo remained under French occupation for another five years. Then the French were expelled and Spanish rule restored. After 1814, however, the Spanish administration became increasingly tyrannical, and

Siddhartha Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Siddhartha - Essay Example Theoretically, it is a justified and beautiful allegory of man's inner desire for peace and rebirth. It greatly shows the eternal oneness of man with his environment. Calvin (1996) asserted that Siddhartha is the best of Hermann Hesse's outstanding collection of work. De Rossi (1999) described Siddhartha as poetic, vibrant and extremely captivating resulting to a work of pure and inconceivable art. The Indian tale, Siddhartha, is the story of the spiritual awakening of an Indian man born from a wealthy Brahmin family. He was exposed to the extremities of man's wanting made of lust and greed and thus, he decided to leave his family and wealth to gain freedom to do whatever he likes. This stubbornness resulted to a child born out of wedlock. Yet, these material illusions caused by Siddhartha's desire to enjoy life have bored him and out of despair, he came to a river. He then heard a peculiar sound which signaled his enlightenment. This marked a new life for him, a life with inner peace and wisdom, which he never knew he had been wanting for a long time. As a young man blessed with intelligence and charm, he first believed that the true meaning of life was using his assets to live life to the fullest. In his quest for spiritual enlightenment, he wandered, hoping to eventually find what he was looking for. Then, he met a ferryman who was sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, listening to the sound of a river. The ferryman was believed by many natives as a sage but in fact, he was once a wandering shramana and a follower of Gotama, the Buddha. Siddhartha, on the other hand, was not a follower of Buddha. He grew up following his own desires without being enraptured by anyone's sermons but himself. Yet, after a long quest for truth and satisfaction, he later found what he was looking for. The ferryman and the friendships he gained in his quest has greatly helped him search his path. Neither did he found it in material things nor in other person's wealth. He found his true self, uncovered by the light of his own spirit. Overall, the book Siddhartha comprises of a mutual combination of man's angst and selfishness. It teaches life-earned lessons Siddhartha learned himself in his journey for inner peace. It is a superbly written spiritual quest. Theoretically, Siddhartha represents an ordinary man of today born with almost every material gift life has to offer. Yet, in his maturity, he later finds out that an enlightened path of life is not taught nor practiced. It is earned through experience. Hence, one has to experience years of the sorrows and joys of life before he finds what he was really searching for. Since the plot is set on India, it is a moral metaphor of Indian theology. The story, itself, depicts man's mystery of loneliness and discontent. It metaphorically shows how the protagonist goes through the various stages of life in order to gain enlightenment and complete rebirth. The happiness he later earned was the result of the complexities he earned