Decoding History

Family Tree_______________________________________________________

file:///Users/justin01pd2018/Documents/humanities/Trimester%201/projects/Geni%20-%20Justin%20Kappler's%20Tree.webarchive

Historical Narrative_____________________________________________

Decoding History

Peacefully sleeping in my forest green, military bunk bed having dreams flow through my mind, I could feel the steady breeze from between the little gap in the tent rub against the surface of my skin. The tent’s size towered above any regular sized tent. The size of it is capable of holding 2 bunk beds that could fit 4 soldiers in it. I had been jubilantly enjoying this time of peace and rest; except for the fact that I lingered in the front lines of the Korean War. Posted at a camp between South and North Korea, I rarely felt any peace.

“DINGALINGALING!” Suddenly, the phone rang. “2:00am! Aw you gotta be kidding me!” I thought to myself as I glared at my watch. Exasperated; I picked up the phone and I had no choice but to attentively listen to what the man on the other end was ordering me to do. “Is this Sergeant Wesley?” the man asked in a deep, commanding voice. I replied simply by saying, “Yes.”

“Well, we’ve recently received a top-secret message and we want you to decode, ASAP. A jeep will pick you up later.” Sighing miserably, I realized that I wouldn’t be having a peaceful rest that morning. “That’s an order sergeant!” Then the classic buzzing echoed through my ear. I settled the phone back into its place. Rapidly, I got out of bed and changed into my uniform. Afterwards, I attentively waited for the jeep coming to my escort.

Raging seas of mind-boggling questions were swirling around my mind. “Please make sure it’s good news this time. Please, oh please” That thought just kept repeating itself. At last the jeep arrived and escorted me to where I had to decode this top-secret message. The Jeep was bouncing up and down on the rough terrain without many shock absorbers to keep it steady. “I hope this isn’t going to be one of those bad messages,” I concluded to myself. The ride filled my mind with uncertainty. Finally, the jeep dropped me off my destination with a lieutenant waiting for my arrival. I felt like a package that’s the key to opening a treasure chest.

“Not bad timing sergeant. Now to decode the message” “Sir yes sir” I replied in a calm, controlled voice. We marched into the enclosed tent that only had a single lamp, which engulfed the room with its light, a table, and the message. At the sight of the ‘TOP-SECRET’ message, I felt the adrenaline running through me. Then, I opened the message with uncertainty and immediately commenced my duty of decoding the message. The lieutenant stood there with a sense of dignity and propriety. I transferred the coded dialect onto another slim sheet of paper in English. Information flashed through my mind as I wrote. My brain was in a coma like state; only focused on decoding the message. Drops of sweat poured from my pores all over my

body. Only capable of feeling the rough surface of the pencil being almost crushed by the amount of pressure I was gripping it with. I could tell from the lieutenant’s facial expression that he was satisfied with my working speed. Finally, I finished writing the message and let an ecstatic laugh burst out from the bellows of my stomach. I gazed at my watch and it was 3:00am. The lieutenant starred at me ostentatiously because he didn’t know what I was sniggering at.

“What are you giggling at sergeant!” exclaimed the lieutenant.

“Read the message!” I answered.

After reading the message, he patted me on the back. The message was the peace treaty. It was the key to true peace.

We contacted the communications center.

“The message was a peace treaty!”

“Quickly send it! Send the news throughout the camp!”

Interview questions and answers ____________________________

Interview with grandpa

Questions

What were you feeling when you got the message?

How’d you get there and feel when you were going there?

How did you feel when you decoded it?

What happened after you decoded it?

Where did you sleep?

What did the decoding team do?

How fast did the new spread?

What did it look like when the artillery shells were firing?

What happened after the peace treaty?

Decoding message of peace treaty

-Excited about decrypting the code

-Excited when decoding it

-A lot of uncertainty when they called him to decode

-Knowing that it was an important message he was nervous

-Had a jeep driving him down to the message center

-Feeling uncertain and thinking about it in the jeep

-A great feeling and relief when they found out the peace treaty

-Excited the war was ending

-A great feeling and relief when they found out the peace treaty

-Patting each other on the back and laughing

-Illuminated the sky when the artillery exploded

-Felt good about the artillery firing up and getting rid of ammunition

-People didn’t burst into cheers at the camp but got excited and relived

-They were tired because they just woke up

-A lot of shouting and noise during the people shot their ammo

-The noise just turned off like a light switch at 11:00

-After the artillery shells being fired people were laughing in peace

-9:30pm-10:pm was heavy artillery shells

-Sleeping in a big tent called a squad tent

-There is one phone in the tent

-He got a call that was a top-secret message

-Lieutenant called him

-A normal day decrypting codes

-Worked closely to the communications center

-The news spread rapidly quickly through 5000 soldiers

-The landscape was mountainous

-Could hear a lot of firing shells

-Daily life was a lot of messages in at the message center about KIA’s

Bibliography_____________________________________________________

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

Research Notes__________________________________________________

•The American front lines were between North and South Korea

•Life was easy when there weren’t any war around your camp

•Cryptographers sent their messages to the communications center

•After the peace treaty a lot of heavy artillery shells were being fired.

Pictures___________________________________________________________

Author's Note____________________________________________________

My small moment is about my grandpa decoding the peace treaty message. At the start of my narrative, I start with describing the scene around him. He stays in a squad tent during the Korean War. The squad tent’s could hold up to 2 bunk beds that could fit four people in it. Then, a lieutenant calls him to decode a top secret message.

A jeep takes him to the tent where he has to decode this top-secret message. I explode the moment when he’s decoding the message because it’s a peace treaty. He didn’t know until he decoded it. So that’s why I took my moment up to a climax.

At the end of my narrative with the heavy artillery shells firing in the air. it showed a sign of a peace treaty because their all wasting their ammo. After that the camp celebrated and partied the because they could all go home.

Reflection ____________________________________________________

This project has helped me learn a huge amount of information on my family member’s past. Doing this project has helped me understand my family members by what they were doing in their past. The historical narrative has given me a better sense of who I am because of my family member’s honorable services.

I think doing a project like this is important because it helps you get a better understanding on your family’s personalities and my personality. The most entertaining part of this project was writing my historical narrative because, I was very interested in what my grandpa’s past was like. I knew he used to be in the Korean war but I never knew that he was a part of something this big.

Some of the difficult challenges I faced were editing and revising for conventions because, my teacher kept saying edit and revise all the time. I knew I could push myself in my writing but, I was never the ‘pushing myself’ kind of person. So, editing and revising were the hardest things in this project.