Wednesday, August 27, 2014

A Warrior's Homecoming (Edited)

By Megan Dortch

As dawn broke through the clouds and into the cabin of the airplane, the passengers closed the blinds covering their tiny windows. The pilot had just announced that the plane was beginning to descend.

A middle aged man in the aisle seat wearing a crisp navy t-shirt with the logo of the wounded Warrior Project held two teddy bears in his arms. He was visually nervous as he bounced his prosthetic leg up and down. A elderly woman sitting across the aisle from him noticed  his uneasiness and ask if flying made uncomfortable. He smiled shyly and nodded. When the wheels of the plane touched down on the runway, the man gritted his teeth and clutched the teddy bears tightly to his chest while keeping his eyes closed until the plane was completely stopped.

When the seat belt light flashed off, the sound of seat belts unfastening filled the cabin and passengers jumped to leave their seats as the man with the teddy bears waited patiently for the aisle to clear. Then, he stood up and retrieved a camouflage duffel bag from the overhead compartment and walked slowly down the aisle, the two teddy bears tucked carefully between his left arm and side.

As he exited the gate, two high-pitched screams began to echo throughout the terminal .The man instantly dropped his dufflel bag and teddy bears to the floor and crouched down with open arms as two little girls with bright blond hair ran toward him. He enveloped them in his arms as tears poured down his face. A tall woman stood close by clutching a sign in her left hand that said, “Welcome home, daddy!” and her right hand tried to wipe the steady stream of tears from her face. The man motioned for her to join the embrace.


Onlookers stood by, many with tears welling up in their own eyes, as the family reunited. After a few minutes, the family stood up and the man gathered his things from the floor. As he handed the teddy bears to the little girls, he told them that he loved them and they embraced him yet again. 

14 comments:

  1. I liked the title. It set the tone for the whole story.

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  3. I really enjoy this piece! There's a lot of vivid imagery- I can feel it, I can see it. I got a little teary-eyed. This is another moment that happens so often it can sometimes go unnoticed. I really like the title change, I think its simple and too the point -also very fitting for the story.

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  4. I really like the title change. It is short, sweet and packs a punch. I know I'm going to enjoy these pieces because they are "fluff" pieces and those are my favorite to read. Question about quotations, don't they normally go in there own paragraph, or is that a different style? Trying to wrap my head around rules is a nightmare!

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  5. The headline change was well done. I also want to commend you on the added details. They added to the imagery the reader was able to experience. Good job!

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  6. Nice job, Megan! I also really like the change to the headline. Question - I've been trying to get all of these rules about commas down and am wondering about the sentence, "A middle aged man in the aisle seat wearing a crisp navy t-shirt with the logo of the wounded Warrior Project held two teddy bears in his arms."

    Should it be written with commas like, "A middle aged man, in the aisle seat wearing a crisp navy t-shirt with the logo of the wounded Warrior Project, held two teddy bears in his arms," or without like you originally had it? It comes down to whether the phrase in question is is restrictive or nonrestrictive (parenthetical) to the meaning of the sentence. (Page 25 in our textbook) I would lean toward nonrestrictive, which does call for commas to set off the parenthetical items.

    What do you guys think?

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  7. I really like the new title. It really gives the story the justice it deserves! This was a great story. Great job.

    Emily - I think it should be "A middle aged man (No comma) in the aisle seat wearing a crisp navy t-shirt with the logo of the wounded Warrior Project (No comma) held two teddy bears in his arms. - Like it's written here by Megan. But I'm not 100% sure.
    Thanks,
    Johanna :)

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  8. Awesome title. It looks like you did a great job editing Monica's story.

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  9. Good job, Megan. I like how you kept some of the necessary details, such as the man being nervous as the flight descended. I also like how you changed a few things to make them more details, like when you described that the little girls were the ones screaming in the airport.

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  10. It was a great piece and a great title. You provided great detail and did a great job of putting your readers in the moment.

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  11. You did a terrific job at making the story more alive with adding a lot of adjectives and adverbs. The title makes it sound very heroic.

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  12. I like those details that you added. The change of the title is great!

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  13. This story was well edited and I enjoyed the changes. You kept all the important details and helped expand on them.

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  14. Great job!!! This was already a great story but the changes you added were perfect and made it more captivating. I like both titles so its hard to say which one I like better, which is a good thing.

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