Letter of Civil War(Fictional)

Remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms and rights that we enjoy on this Memorial Day weekend!

July 12, 1861

Dear Mom,

It’s been so long since I’ve heard from you, all the way in California. I hope you and dad are still healthy and kicking butt. Thanks a lot for the that huge yellow scarf you got me. I had no need for it back at home, but here, up North, it’s one of my top ten most needed items. Try to say hi to our neighbors for me if you can. You know, like old Kingsley, Ms. Patty...... and the dog, Bonny. I miss everything there.

You know about the war that’s brewing, right? Everyone’s taking sides, North or South. I am supporting the North, just like you told me. Now I see the sense in your reasons about not helping slavery continue. I mean, African American people are still people. We can’t just let them continue to be treated like animals. I have a new friend, Billy, who’s from a rich South Carolina plantation family. He and one of his brothers came up to support the North, and he’s told me the truth about the slavery in the South. Billy says that his dad is a harsh man, and deaths among the South’s slaves were common. As far as Billy could remember, six slaves have died on his family’s plantation, four from infections due to beating, and two from disease. I know this isn’t happy talk, but I just thought you’d like to know that I am more assured about the choice we made in this war.

For the past six months, I have been working at the main telegraph station where President Lincoln and his advisors send messages to the Union’s field commanders. Usually, the messages are about the overall strategies of which towns to take and things like that. President Lincoln seems like a nice enough man, although he always has a lot of information for us to tell the field commanders, keeping us working most of the time. The amount of work pressed upon us was to the #1 reason I couldn’t write to you sooner. But still, the pay is surprisingly good, as I am one of the primary telegraphers, and the load has slackened, as the oncoming battle is Bull Run, one that every Union general thinks is going to be an easy victory. By the time you receive this letter, Bull Run will most likely have been already won.

I am feeling conflicted about joining the Army. I have seen many headstrong, impulsive young men charge off into war, swayed by experienced officers’ speeches. The speeches talk about none of war’s bloodiness, pain, and discomfort. They only talk about killing successfully, hardening your personality, and getting educated about “important things.” But even though these inspiring speeches got my spirits pumped up, my feelings toward war changed after the excitement of the speech subsided. I think about peaceful debates between the North and South, instead of solving problems by going onto the battlefield. Why does everyone have to go for a violent approach when people disagree on something? But even though all my instincts and common sense tell me not to embrace the unorthodox method of war, the idea of signing up to be a soldier has its merits. Almost all my friends have signed up except for Joe, only because he was too fat to join. And shouldn’t I support my side by bearing up arms too? I know that telegraphing for President Lincoln and the Union Army is a good, non-violent way of serving the North already; it just does not seem to be exciting enough for me to see myself as patriotic. I am struggling over this hard decision. I hope you can give me some help on this issue, Mom.

I really hope that this war won’t be long and bloody, and that it will blow over soon. I just want the Union to get a swift victory over the Rebels and end slavery once and for all. This war definitely seems easy for us, don’t you think, Mom? I mean, the Union’s got the numbers and the equipment. Well, enough of this war talk. It’s almost time to fill in the shift for my fellow telegrapher, who is in bed with a bad cold. Hopefully I can get you guys to move over here to the East when this hostility is over. I can’t wait to see you and dad again!

Love,

Charles

Jobs Gates

    Of all the rich people on this Earth, the two billionaires that interest me the most are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jobs, a rich man who didn’t live a very long life, and came from a poor family, versus Gates, an even richer man who donates to charity regularly, and had a very supportive family.

    Steve Jobs was born in February of 1955. Roughly eight months later, Bill Gates was born, in October of 1955. Whereas Jobs was born in San Francisco, California, Gates was born in Seattle, Washington. But in the same year, two billionaires had been born on the West Coast.

    These two people’s family backgrounds couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Steve Jobs is the biological son of John Jandali and Joanne Schieble, who gave Jobs up for adoption the moment he was born. Jobs was then adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, a nice couple who worked as mechanic and accountant. At school, Jobs did so well that his teachers recommended that he skip two grades. Even though his grades suggested that Jobs was a hardworking student, he constantly played tricks and practical jokes on other students.

    On the other hand, Gates was raised by his biological parents, William and Mary Gates, and had a happy normal childhood. He was the third child out of four, and had regular problems with his annoying siblings. Like Jobs, he did well in school but did not play tricks on other students. Gates showed a natural interest in tinkering with computer programs, becoming so talented with computer codes that he modified the school’s schedule so that he could be placed in classes with "a disproportionate number of interesting girls”(Wikipedia).

    Although Jobs’s SAT score is a big mystery, it is well known that Bill Gates’s SAT score was 1590 out of 1600, a very good result at the time. Both men were accepted into good colleges, and both dropped out of college, but for different reasons. Jobs dropped out of Reed College after six months because the tuition was expensive, and his adoptive parents could not pay for it. Gates dropped out of Harvard College, not because he couldn’t afford it, but because he and his business partner had found the perfect opportunity to start a company. After hearing how much Gates wanted to have his own business, his parents gave him their full approval to drop out of Harvard.

    Jobs and Gates had careers that were both similar and different. Although both worked with technology, Jobs had a pretty turbulent early career, with many rises and dips. He started off as a partially successful video game producer, not earning much, but working a stable job. But that was not good enough for Jobs. He gathered a couple of his video game-producing friends and started Apple Computers in 1976, inside his parents’ garage. Even after a couple rough years of hard work, this company had not grown much. Again, Jobs resigned, and bought an animated filmmaking shop, Pixar, that did pretty well, producing about half a dozen animated films, starting with Toy Story. Jobs returned to a slightly better Apple, and sold Pixar to Disney in order to support Apple. There, he introduced the successful iPhone series, along with a whole bunch of other iThings. This was when he finally came into prominence, and his name became more well known. He served as the CEO of Apple until the day before he died, on October 5, 2011, at 56 years of age.

    Bill Gates had a much more stable career with his partner Paul Allen. Together, they formed the computer software company, Microsoft, and Gates stayed with the company throughout his adult life. He was satisfied with Microsoft, and didn’t jump around like Jobs, searching and searching for another better occupation. Something that Gates targeted was work specified to software, while Jobs liked to do business where both hardware and software were designed by him and his company. After a slight hiccup with another tech company, MITS, in which MITS took Gates’s basic design of the microcomputer without paying a continual fee for its constant use of the design, Gate’s Microsoft made a deal with IBM, and had much more success. In a few years, the partnership with IBM started to deteriorate, and these two huge tech companies began to head down different paths. But. Gates was now experienced in keeping his business successful, and aggressively broadened the company’s range of products, including the famous Microsoft Windows. Now he has stepped down from the Chair of Microsoft to being one of its Technical Advisors.

    Even though both were rich businessmen that were able to give to to charity, why did only one of them actually show real support to non-profit organizations? Why is only Bill Gates well known for donating to charity and even starting his own organization, the Gates Foundation, when Steve Jobs had the ability to do the same thing but chose not to? No one will ever know, because that died with Jobs. After my research revealed no solid evidence of Steve Jobs ever donating to the public, my opinion of Jobs went down pretty significantly. I think that no matter how big the difference between these two successful men’s families or salaries, the factor that sets them apart the most is the kindness in their hearts.

    Steve Jobs, the maker of almost all the iDevices, changed the way people consume and produce entertainment, allowing us to have more ways of enjoying ourselves through iPhones, iPads, and iMuch more. However, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, changed the world through technology and charity. His Windows program brought personal computers to homes and families, making the world a more efficient work force. And charity? Well, let’s just say that the $40 billion he’s donated since 2007 has been put to good use around the world. To cap it off, Gates has definitely changed the world more than Jobs, made more money, and given more of it away.

    Oh yes, there was one last thing that I got from these two people. I figured out that no matter how rich you are, the most important thing is to stay healthy and alive. As a 59-year-old billionaire, Gates is still alive and healthy, and is still enjoying his 66,000-square-foot estate with his wife, while Jobs is not. Both men chased their dreams and both achieved them , but without the healthy body and mind to enjoy the reward after working so hard, Jobs “lost the one before all those zeroes that gave them any value”(Fiona Wei, my mom).