Every person, everywhere, with no exceptions has experienced fear. Fear, to be afraid, has hit us all, whether it was fear of failing, or fear for your own personal safety. Fear is what keeps us on our alert edge. It kept you from jumping off the high dive when you were a child for fear you would get injured, and it kept you up late studying for fear of failing. It is the realization of consequences in the immediate or distant future.
             There are many forms of fear and we benefit from all of them. It never makes you do anything you do not want to do, and gets the consequences going through your head. Fear of failure in our classroom makes us work harder, and fear of dying on the beaches of Normandy made soldiers run that much faster. Fear is what keeps us on our toes. I know it changed my life tremendously on one occasion, and saved my life on another. Fear of failing English 1301 has me glued too my chair when all of my friends are mountain biking.
             At the age of seventeen, I was more concerned about having a good time then worrying about school. The result of this of course, was my dropping out of school. It took me only one day to realize what I had done. What was a seventeen-year-old drop out going to do? I sank into a major depression when I realized the severity of what I had done was. The first concern for my future arose, and the fear of it. I was on a nowhere road with no exits unless I did something drastic to change myself. One week later, fear of failure had me on a plane with a destination of Fort Benning, Georgia. It had driven me to enlist in the Army.
             Fear for my own personal safety saved my life one windy day in the Mojave Desert. My squad was sent to desert warfare school in Fort Irwin. The Battalion Commander decided it would be necessary to insert my team by means of parachute for reconnaissance on enemy movement. When the time came for me to jump out of the C-130 Hercules, I yelle
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