<p>Prompt:</p>
<p>Many persons believe that to move up the ladder of success and achievement, they must forget the past, repress it, and relinquish it. But others have just the opposite view. They see old memories as a chance to reckon with the past and integrate past and present.</p>
<p>Adapted from Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation</p>
<p>Assignment: Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>Essay:</p>
<p>For many people, it can be painful to hold on to memories of the past. The repression of unwanted memories can be a useful tool when attempting to do what is necessary or convenient in the present. However, with no past experiences to provide perspective, the human frame of reference can be dramatically skewed. Without knowledge of mankind's collective history, as well as one's own history and that of the society that one lives in, it is impossible to make effective judgements.</p>
<p>Take as an example the current Iraq war. Many military planners felt certain that the United States would require more troops in order to instill an effective interim government and keep the peace after the fall of Baghdad. However, the decision was made to only send in as many troops as were necessary for the invasion itself. As a result, the armed forces of the U.S. are spread out beyond their abilities to effectively maintain the rule of law.</p>
<p>Had the government taken into advantage (writer: what the hell did i mean there?) the occupations of Kosovo or Japan, it would have been blatantly obvious that more forces would be needed to do the job. In Kosovo, the ratio of soldiers to guerilla fighters that was found to be needed to maintain order was 27:1. (writer: ******** fact.) In Japan, even with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and the support of the former regime, the U.S. remained in the country for over a decade. Clearly, one can see that the current U.S. forces in Iraq are woefully inadequate, if one looks to the past.</p>
<p>When the opportunity is taken to learn from the past - not only from one's own memory, but from that of society as well - it can be a great boon to one's effort to make appropriate decisions. Conversely, if one fails to remember past events, the mistakes that have been made in the past are likely to be repeated.</p>
<p>Basically, a poor essay that used a lot of three- and four-syllable words, and was pretty free of grammatical errors. I have no idea why I used that blatantly wrong word in the third paragraph... oops. If I could do it over again, I would fix that, and write about personal memory as well as history.</p>
<p>Hope this helps some of you.</p>