Arin Merrill

Prof. Simonsen
Humanities
04-24-15
Eportfolio Paper
For my civic engagement, I knew I wanted to do something to help those who I am
passionate about. Who better to help then my own people? I decided to find a way to help the
veterans of our community out by volunteering. After speaking to my sergeants, I found out that
one of our aviation units were coming back from a yearlong deployment from Afghanistan. I
knew this was my opportunity to help. While staying in contact with my sergeant, I was able to
coordinate a small group of soldiers to help me. When the deployed unit returned home, they
were bombarded with meetings and conferences to discuss how the mission went. Most of these
returning soldiers had children and no one to watch the children while they were attending all of
these meetings. This was my opportunity. I jumped on it.
I did some research, asked around, and got permission to gather a few of us soldiers and
find out where the returned soldiers were having their meetings. I discovered these meetings
were down in one of the nice hotels in Provo. At 6 in the morning. Dragging my butt out of
bed at 4:30, put my uniform on, and hopped in my car. I made sure I was down at the hotel early
enough to start setting up before everyone got there. Now Im not sure if youve caught onto
what it is that I was doing, Im watching everyones kids! Ive never been too great around kids,
Im always afraid I am going to break them. But luckily all of the kids the returned soldiers were
bringing in were over 5. I had set up a small station at the front of the hotel and welcomed the

soldiers as they entered, I handed out coffee and directed them towards another table a little ways
down the hall where they could check in their kids and proceed to attend their meetings. Once
the meeting was about to being, I cleaned up my table and downed the coffee (not a good idea)
and headed over to make sure everyone had been checked in properly. Once I double checked the
list and called roll, the games began.
I had asked around my unit to see what kind of games children liked (considering I
wouldnt know) and a few people even volunteered to loan me their games. Our game table was
stacked full from monopoly to twister, from card games to jenga. Knowing this meeting was
going to be a long one for the returned soldiers, I wanted to elongate and activity we were going
to be doing. Considering that monopoly is one of the longer games, I started the bigger kids on it.
I have never been a big fan of monopoly, maybe because I suck at it, but playing with kids was a
blast! Maybe because I won. I like winning. After we finished playing monopoly, we moved on
to play twister, being the biggest person there, I sat out and was the one to call the moves. We
had a few different sets of twister and we decided to combine all the playing mats so everyone
could play, imagine the spaghetti monster from that!
After all of our games, we decided to make bracelets with a kit someone had brought. We
made those survival bracelets that you braid together and can take apart if you ever need to. They
were pretty cool I made a pink one.
After the bracelet making, it was time for lunch, which the hotel had provided. We were
all hungry but I was sure to have the children await to go get food after their parent shad gotten
theirs ad sat down. I didnt want to slow down their meeting. Once it was out turn to get food, I
had the younger kids go first and us older kids help them. Once we had all gotten our food, we
went back into our room and ate.

After lunch, I was informed that the meeting would be going on a little later then what
they had planned. Crap, I was running out of ways to keep 15+ kids entertained all in one room.
Luckily I had one more trick up my sleeve. Arts and crafts!
I enjoy arts and crafts because you can do whatever you want and be as messy as you
want. I had paint, glitter, glue, puff balls, Styrofoam, colored pipe cleaners, and much much
more. This activity lasted us until the end of the returned soldiers meeting, thankfully. At first,
when the parents saw how mess the kids were, they seemed a little upset but when the kids
would tell them all about their day and how much fun they had with us, the parents seemed much
relived. As the last parent came up to thank me and I waved goodbye, I realized that I did make a
difference, although minuet, it mattered, and thats all that mattered. I cleaned up the glitter
covered room, apologized to the staff, and hopped in my car to go take a much needed nap.
I knew I had helped the returned soldiers but I didnt realize how much. By next drill,
soldiers didnt recognize were coming up to me thanking me and saying how their kids still
wont stop talking about me.

Although we did not read this text in class, I would like to relate my civic engagement
experience to titled Expendable. Expendable is written by Langston Hughes.
Considering how short this poem is, Ill write it for you:

We will take you and kill you,

Expendable.

We will fill you full of lead,

Expendable.
And when youre dead
In the nice cold ground
Well put your name
Above your headIf your head
Can be found.

Though considerably morbid, this poem hit home for me. This poem is about the bloody side of
war. Though as a soldier, we are all proud to be who we are and proud to do what we do, there
has to be some level of understanding that if something were to happen to you, yes there would
be mourning, but you will be replaced the next day. Times have changed though, back then, war
was about body count and man power, now days it is more focused on tactics and intelligence, so
though slightly more needed, we are still expendable.

My Reflection
When I first walked into this class, I was surrounded by a group of unfamiliar faces and a
teacher that made us play the name game. Yes, a bunch of college students had to play the name
game. Hi, Im Arin and I like hiking. Though a little ridiculous, going around in a circle and
remembering names and hobbies, I was able to make a few friends from the experience. Next
time we came into class, I sat by the few people I remembered. A corky teacher stepped in front
of the class and began explaining what the course was going to be about. Before the teacher
explained what the course was going to be about, I had it in my head that the study of humanities
was going to be something to do with taxes or finances. I have no idea why I thought that, the
definition of humanities is literally in the word itself. For those of you who dont know what it
means, it is the study of human race, ethnicity, culture, and origins.
After figuring out the actual definition of humanities, I began to get excited. I thoroughly
enjoy learning about the origins and the ethnics of the human culture.
My favorite topic we studied was the Love topic. I enjoyed the online discussions we had
as a class where everyone could post about their own ideas of love and the rules. The Rules
discussion was my favorite discussion we had. I found it very interesting to read other peoples
views on love. I found some people to be very closed minded, but then again, maybe Im the
close minded one.
I also enjoyed the Equality topic. Especially the women equalities. For me, I have been a
victim and an advocate of equality for women being a female in the military. I have struggled on
many different occasions with equality issues. The discussions we had in class were interesting.

Some people would argue on behalf of themselves, not a gender as a whole and the benefits that
gender would bring. For me, females bring great diversity to the military life style.
Overall, a very interesting class. I enjoyed what we were taught and the many different
discussions and opinions brought into the course. Not only was the course interesting, but the
professor was very passionate about what she taught. I could see the many struggles she had
when debates would get heated, I can only imaine how difficult it would be to mediate heated
arguments.