Why I Serve: Emily Contreras

Unless. 

It’s a simple word, underwhelming even. It’s easy to miss the potential of one “unless.”

Eighty-four years ago, one “unless…” changed my family’s path forever. 

My grandfather was dirt poor, literally. In his own words, he grew up, “...in a dirt floor shack in the foothills of Missour-a.” He was the fourth of seven siblings, the oldest boy. The Great Depression got to his father, like so many others. He left for work one day and never returned, abandoning his wife and seven young children in a state they didn’t know. Somehow, they all made it back to family in Iowa, where the children were separated among aunts and uncles after their mother’s mental health became too overwhelmed by the anxiety of it all.

By all accounts, my great-grandfather was a generally terrible man with one redeeming quality: he was extraordinarily smart. Definitely not socially, or emotionally. More like Good Will Hunting, solving complex calculus on the hallway chalkboard smart. This trait was passed on to my grandfather, though it went unseen as he spent countless hours laboring at a neighboring dairy farm.

Four days before my grandfather’s 20th birthday, Pearl Harbor was attacked. He knew he would be called to serve, but wanted to control his own destiny. He’d heard stories of the trenches in World War I. He didn’t want to die that way. He went to the Army recruiter’s office and made his request: he wanted to be an Army Air Corp pilot.

“I’m sorry, son, you have to have a college degree to be a pilot” the recruiter told him.

His heart sank. College hadn’t been in the cards for him. He thanked the recruiter for his time and began to leave. As he reached for the door, the recruiter called out: 

“...unless you can pass the test.”

---

The recruiter had no idea the impact he made, but this was our fork in the road. My grandfather passed the test and arrived in Europe just a few days after his fellow soldiers had stormed the beaches of Normandy. He flew a C-47, dropping paratroopers and pulling gliders. He received the Air Medal. He was promoted to First Lieutenant, and came home in December of 1945 to meet his one-year-old son, my father.

That one encounter, one “unless” changed his and our lives forever. He came home and established his own farm, worked hard to ensure his children could receive the education they wanted and not be restricted to certain types of work as they grew up.

His experience instilled a core belief in my father, passed on to all of us: the most impactful thing we can do every day is see the potential in others regardless of their current circumstances, and - when we are able - provide them with the opportunity to reach it.

This is why I serve. Because once you’ve made that kind of impact, all you can think is “how can I make that kind of difference again?”
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"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” -The Lorax