Student #6
I recently interviewed a former veteran who served in the Afghanistan war. He was my old math teacher in middle school and he would show us pictures of him on camels and with some of the children over there in the area.
We sat down and talked and I asked him as being a veteran, what are five things that you hope that I am learning in my United States history class. Out of the five answers, his first answer was that he hopes as college students, we must understand and be aware of what happened in our past so we could better our future. He further explained that with taking the US history class, the person will have a better understanding of why certain events occurred and our reactions to events.
The second thing he hopes we are learning about in class is why the United States always interferes with other countries. He says that the United States is very powerful and felt the need to help others to keep peace. He also said that what other countries had, we needed so we had to become friends with them.
My old math teacher also brought up the whole Bush situation. He says that he really hopes we are learning about what stupid mistakes our past presidents made. He says that Bush weakened our democracy and Bush is the reason why so many lives were lost in the war against Iraq.
This veteran also would expect that in history class we are learning about the bad side of history such as slavery. He believes that slavery gets overlooked and does not get acknowledged at all. He also believes that it still affects us today.
Lastly, he hopes we are learning about the different cultures. He explains that learning about different cultures gives us an appreciation of what we have and realize that an individual across the country could be yearning to do what we do and to have what we have.
