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"The Charge of the Light Brigade"

On October 25th, 1854, during the Crimean War, a British cavalry unit charged boldly into battle against a Russian army. The problem was that the charge was a mistake. The unit was supposed to travel on a hill to the side of a valley, but instead charged through its middle. With fewer men, lighter arms, and in a much weaker position, the men followed their orders, charged through a guarded valley, and were killed in the process (many of them, anyway).

While I can't say my mistakes have been so bad that poems have been written about them (see Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade"), I can say that I've had memorable ones. The following is an example. I'm calling it my charge of the light brigade.

I was on the track team. It was my senior year in high school. My friends and I had trained for the cross-country portion of track and field. I think it was after we had completed our events for the day, our coach informed us that we had no one to run the one-hundred meter for our school, and indicated that one of us should do it. Being the young, energetic lad that I was, I gleefully (yet nervously) volunteered for the position, not realizing the devastation that would follow.

I’m not a sprinter. When I lined up, I tried not to look at the competition, but to keep my focus on the race. I wasn’t sure how I’d do, but I thought at the very least I would be able to keep somewhat close to the competition. When the gunshot sounded, I gave my all, trying not to pay attention to those around me. It was, however, in front of hundreds of people sitting in the bleachers to my right (most of whom were complete strangers) and all my teammates that, yes, I earned dead last in the hundred-meter for my school.

Like the "noble six hundred" that Tennyson writes about in his poem, my "charge" was a valiant one. My sense of duty to the team outweighed the wisdom I should have listened to before the race; and while I wasn't killed in battle, the lesson I learned is no less significant than the one learned by the British that day: Wisdom is no enemy to Courage, but instead is its counselor. When it ceases to become so, your virtues become vices.

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