None_provided Essays (1347 words) - Project Mercury,

None_provided General Chuck Yeager Charles E. Yeager was born on February 13, 1923 in Myra, West Virginia and raised the nearby village of Hamlin for the first eighteen years of his life. His father drilled natural gas, and his mother was a housewife. At an early age, Chuck helped his father drill, and learned mechanics from his father. Chuck was always fixing the car engines or the drill engine if it broke. In high school Chuck played basketball and baseball, although he never really excelled in either. He also was not that smart in school. He said the only thing that he was good at was typing and math, everything else, he got a D in. After high school, Chuck, being poorly educated and destitute decided to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. The funny thing about that is that Chuck never even saw an airplane on the ground until he was 16 years old, when it had an emergency and landed in a cornfield, and Chuck was not even impressed with it. He said the reason that he joined the Air Corps is because the recruiter made the Air Corps sound more interesting that the Navy recruiter. Anyway, Chuck joined the Air Corps as a mechanic. After a year of being a mechanic, the Untied States was short pilots, so they put up a notice to see if anyone wanted to become a pilot. Chuck signed the form; however, it took another year for them to pick him. It was always hard for Chuck to fit in among the other pilots and mechanics. Because he was from West Virginia, he had a strong accent, and a poor education, so he was never given a chance at first. Then, when he first went in a plane, he almost quit the pilot school because there was turb ulence and he was bumping all over the place. On the other hand, once he flew a plane by himself he was hooked. He excelled in pilot school because he had excellent vision, 20/10, and learned how to dogfight, that is getting in position to shoot down another plane and avoiding getting shot down yourself. He left for the War in 1942. He was disappointed at first because after 6 missions, they hadnt seen one German. Yet, on his 7th mission the Americans encountered German planes while escorting a bomber. Yeager killed one and returned safely. Unluckily for Yeager, on his next mission in 1943, his plane gto shot down over enemy territory and he had to jump out (there were no ejection seats in those days). For the next 3 weeks it was hell. After he jumped, all he had were 2 stale candy bars and a bottle of water. He saw a French woodcutter and jumped him for his axe. However, instead of getting mad, he got help for Chuck. Within a couple of hours, Chuck had the help of the French Maquis, a French resistance group. They led to the Pyrenees Mountains with one other shot down pilot, where they told them that they were on their own. They hike the mountains for days, thinking they go nowhere. One day, they found a cabin and rested. The other pilot put his socks over bushes to dry. A German patrol did not even bother to look in the cabin, but just shot. The other pilot got his leg totally blown off. Chuck decided to carry him for three days before they finally got into neutral Spain. There, Chuck spent another 3 weeks in a luxury hotel, paid for by the army, while the government negotiated for his release. When he finally got back he received bad news. He was not going to be able to go back because if he got shot down again the Germans would torture them to find out where the Maquis were. He appealed to General Dwight Eisenhower and Eisenhower let him stay in. From there, Yeagers career took off. He went back in the Corps and after a couple of missions we was back to dogfighting. One time there were 200 Germans attacking roughly 40 Americans. On that day, Yeager became and Ace shooting down 5 on his own, (the first

Cannery Row-fiction paper essays

Cannery Row-fiction paper essays Mack wasted no time with small talk, Lee, he said, Doc over theres got a problem. He needs me and the boys to go and gather up 300 frogs for an order hes got. We need to borrow your truck, so we can go to Carmel Valley. Lee was reluctant but gave into the proposition; however, Doc had been a tremendous customer throughout the years; Lee felt he owed it to Doc to help him out wherever he could. Mack and the boys packed up to begin their road trip, destination: Carmel Valley. Mack knew around where their destination lie. As the trip commenced they became consumed in the chatter of how their money would be spent. Doc was to give them 5 cents for every frog they captured and returned to him. All the boys determined that the money was to be spent on a party for Doc, to thank him for being such a great guy. They chatted with excitement as their imaginations ran wild, thinking up extravagant party ideas. In the bed of the truck lied a 5-gallon-jug of whiskey; that Eddie had brought from the bar. As they drove, they began to take drinks, in hope of making the trip more enjoyable. Somewhere along the line Mack thought it would be a good idea to take a short cut; he thought he remembered from the last time he went to Caramel Valley, with Doc. The road came to end where a bridge lay broken, washing down the river. They were at a dead end. Gay being the bright man, who he was, talked all the boys into thinking that the car could make the jump if they got enough speed. Instructing them that, if we get enough speed, we can make this here jump, and it will save us a day of backtracking. The boys went along with this idea, deciding after a couple more drinks that backtracking sounded as though it required actual effort. They put the truck in reverse moving as far back as possible, accelerating as fast as their car would permit. Barely breaking 55, they made it across the jump. However,...

Texas Lottery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Texas Lottery - Essay Example Thesis: It is right for Texas law to restricts the lottery commission from introducing new forms of gambling. Texas Lottery runs by the Texas government thus it is often criticized as a typical gambling which has a negative impact on the society. In 1991, the legislation to create a state lottery was introduced and Texas population approved the Lottery. Since that time, the Texas Lottery communion has introduced a lot of new forms of gambling including Mega Millions, Looto Texas, Daily 4 (The Texas Lottery 2008). The goals of the Texas laws are to restrict gambling in the state and protect citizens from "exploitation" by the Lottery commission. Also, Texas laws regulate the gambling industry and stipulate strict norms and principles for the Lottery. The advisability of legalizing the Lottery in order to generate revenue for the state must be assessed in terms of the equity of gambling as a tax source, i.e. the regressivity of taxes, and the efficiency of raising revenue through gambling taxes, i.e. the cost-effectiveness of the Lottery legalization (Dee 2004). Thus, current laws do not accomplish their goals and permits emergence of new forms of Lottery and gambling. Daily 4. is an example of this process. The right thing is that the Texas laws legalize the Lottery and reduce illegal gambling in Texas (Sandberg 2008).