What will you be doing this New Year’s Eve?
We all go to the movies, watch television, and read books (comic or hardback – same effect). We do this to escape from the mundane, from the difficult lives we lead, to find a better story than the one we face day to day. The one in fact, we write day to day. We write these grand histories, but somewhere along the way, we forget the plot. We forgot how we wanted it to end, how the good guy who met the good girl was supposed to fall in love and get married.
We forget about the kid who was supposed to become an astronaut, but instead struggled with ninth-grade algebra and gave up. So we look away from our stories and we search for better ones. Too many of us, with extraordinary potential, live stories without meaning. The author Don Miller wrote, “If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo, and worked for years to get it, you wouldn’t cry at the end when he drove off the lot + you wouldn’t tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie. The truth is, you wouldn’t remember that movie a week later except you’d feel robbed and want your money back.”
Why then do we carry on our lives like characters without good stories?
The tragedy today is that so many individuals are living stories that we don’t read in the paper, or hear on the news, or catch at Carmike 6 … and we should. The story of First Lt. Tyler Parten is one of heroism, determination, laughter, and adventure. I had the pleasure of being under his brother’s tutelage my first year at West Point, and learned that like heroes of old, men who laugh loud, smile wide, fight like lions, and befriend easily still exist, and they are the Partens.
Tyler was living a life outside of the mundane. He traveled the globe as a cadet. Acting as a sign of hope to the children he entertained in Afghanistan with his harmonica, built a chicken coop with his own hands to aid local farmers, and wrote back home of how you can see joy in a man’s face “when you show his child a little compassion.”
He didn’t need a film to escape to an exciting world, he lived something exciting, something meaningful. He was tell-ing a good story, one that was cut too short. Tragically, Lt. Parten was killed in action in Afghanistan Sept. 10, leading his troops and serving a nation he loved.
Tyler’s story is not finished, and will indeed, never be. Stories like his inspire, they challenge, and they remind us of what is important. This New Year’s Eve is my 21st birthday. I had considered doing what all warm blooded Americans do on this occasion; that is, drink too much and potentially embarrass the family name.
After hearing about Tyler Parten, and considering the type of story he was telling, I thought about my story, and how I wanted it to be told. Would bringing my friends together on New Year’s Eve to drink be original, would it inspire, would it involve sacrifice and help others as Tyler’s did?
The fact is, we only get one chance to write our stories. However as much as I dislike editing papers, it is a luxury we are not afforded in life. Therefore, instead of the norm this New Year’s Eve, I propose we try to tell a different story, one that honors the life of a hero, and attempts to better the lives of the men who are carrying on his mission today.
So this Dec. 31 I will try to write a better story; buying comforts from home, packing them up, writing letters of encouragement, and shipping them out to Tyler’s unit in Afghanistan. Co-authors are wanted.
For more information on how you can join me on New Year’s Eve, email me at nate.webster@usma.edu
or go to http://tinyurl.com/NewYearsEvewithapurpose
Nate Webster is a third year cadet at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY. He majors in African Studies and environmental engineering and is working and studying abroad in Europe this fall. Nate is the son of Daniel and Cynthia Webster and spent most of his youth playing basketball in the Uniontown YMCA. He hopes the Pirates pull out a winning season in his lifetime.