Young Boy's Dream of Becoming a Rocket Engineer Comes True - Essay Sample

Introduction

Everybody has dreams, and some of us dream and dedicate their breath to seeing a dream come true. Homer Hickam began dreaming about becoming a rocket engineer while he was still young; this is after he saw the Russian send up a satellite to the moon. After seeing that satellites in the open night sky, his interest in rockets became peeked; he decided that he was going to learn everything he could about satellites and rockets. Hickam got filled by the desire to see his dream come true that he even went to be part of the group called The Rocket Boys who launched rockets through the night sky. Homer H. Hickam, Jr. was born on February 19, 1943, the second son of Homer and Elsie Hickam, and got raised in Coal wood, West Virginia (Hickam, "The Coalwood way"). He graduated from Big Creek high school in 1960. His dad Homer Sr., wanted him to become a coal miner like himself, but Homer had other plans and dreams for his future. Against all the odds, Homer Hickam graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech) in 1964 with a BS degree in Industrial Engineering (Hickam, "The Coalwood way"). Between 1967 and 1968, he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam as the first Lieutenant in the fourth infantry division; he served six years before on activity duty before he left the service as Captain. In 1969 he started writing after he returned from Vietnam, at first most of his works were about scuba diving. "Homer stopped writing scuba diving because of the many wrecks he was involved and started writing about the battle against U-boats along the American east coast during the WW2" (Hickam. "Torpedo Junction"). Later, he became an author, and in 1998, Delacorte Press published Hickam's second book, Rocket Boys: A Memoir, the story of his life in the little town of Coal wood, "West Virginia".

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Homer Jr., can be portrayed as a hero because of the many of the qualities he possesses. He is multi-talented, determined, and perseverant. Homer can Jr., be characterized as being multi-talented by the diverse areas he ventured into from being in the army where he received an "Army Commendation Medal and Bronze Star" aerospace engineer, publisher and author, SCUBA diver and instructor, an amateur paleontologist working alongside Dr. Jack Horner (Hickam, "The Rocket boys). When working at NASA as an engineer Homer was involved in a lot despite the engineering part of his job that mostly involved spacecraft and rockets design, he worked with various astronauts training them and offering guidance in multiple capacities.

Homer being determined and perseverant can be demonstrated by his willingness to go to school and earn a college degree even when all things seem to be against his dream of being an aerospace engineer. He took it upon himself to see that he achieved what he had set his mind on to and it didn't matter whether he had the support of his loved ones or not. Being able to fulfill his dreams against all odds took inner strength and mental ability that can only be attributed to a hero according to my understanding, most of us will give up when the odds seem to be too big and forget it takes courage, persistence, dedication and inner motivation to be able to achieve what we set out to do, the same qualities can also get seen while he served in the army his determination to meet various challenges and rise above them.

Conflict

Homer Hickam Jr., as he was growing and deciding that he will set a different path for his future which was different from what the society he was living in was used to do created a conflict that can be termed as person vs. society kind of conflict. The Coalwood town is a coal mining town, and the society depends on coal mining for their daily bread, and it was the norm that everyone would eventually end up working in the mines but when Homer Hickam went against the status-quo of the town he picked a fight with the town's tradition which meant he would be opposed by the society members by whatever means possible. Homer and his group, the Rocket boys, were taunted by the town's people calling their dreams as pointless and potentially dangerous (Hickam, "The Rocket boys").it took inner strength and the spirit of never giving up to see that Rocket boys made true their word of putting up a rocket.

Another category of conflict that can get depicted from Homer's life is person vs. person, a well-referenced conflict was between his dad and him, Homer's brother who was a football player got support from his father to pursue football, but for Homer he was denied the chance to pursue what he had dreamed about, and instead, his father wanted Homer to come work in the mines like he was doing (Hickam 39). The lack of support from his father who he had hoped will be by his corner created the first instance of disagreement between Homer and his loved ones. This only left Homer with the mentality that he was going to achieve his dreams on his own without the support of his loved especially his father. To overcome this Homer required determination and strong will to maintain his current path and finally reach his goals in life.

The conflict and drift between Homer's parents is another example of conflict mentioned in Homer's life (Hickam 76). His mother Elsie Lavender Hickman despises the life around coal mining to the extent that he encourages her son HomerJr. To pursue a life outside of Coalwood that had nothing to do with mining. This is different for his dad Homer Sr who seems to love the mines to the extent of wanting his younger son to join the mines. The conflict between Homer's parent majorly revolved around the mines and the kind of life they thought each of their kids deserve, for the mother she is portrayed as someone who believes that one deserve to dream and live a life that did not have anything to do with the coal mines while for the father he is portrayed as someone who sees the coal mines as their tradition and everyone within the Coalwood town should eventually get employed with the mines and not follow their dreams at least for Homer Jr.,.( Goll., Lindsay, and Dolores 177)

Obstacles

Everyone and everything that set out to do something different in life must face obstacles as their gravitate towards their goals. For Homer, it wasn't any different, for whatever he set out to achieve he faced challenges but he managed to overcome them and finally reach his goals. According to Homer's memoir, it is possible to say that the first obstacle that Homer faced was the location, town and the environment he lived in. Coalwood town is that full time involve in coal mining, and this created the first challenge he had to face being that he wanted a life that did not have anything to do with mining, the society usually tend to reject anything that goes against the norm and tradition and being that Coalwood citizens including the priests got involved in mining one had to overcome a lot to be different, especially the taunting and passive nature of the town's people toward their dreams.

Another challenge came as the lack of essential books, equipment, and knowledge of rocketry. It is rocket science, and that means one would require scientific and mathematical concepts to grasp what they were doing. Homer didn't have the necessary knowledge even books to fully understand what rocket science was all about, and he applied basic mathematical and scientific concepts when they were initially designing and building their rockets with his group of Rocket boys (Mitcham 27-36).

During the entire adventure of Homer Jr., his father Homer Sr. did not play an active support role in enabling his child to attain his dreams. The lack of support from his father and his family especially the brothers who kept mocking his ambition didn't make it easy for Homer. Family and parents are the first support anyone deserves to have when they set out to do something which was not the case. All Homer had was himself, his teacher Frieda Riley and his mother who both encouraged him not to stop pursuing whatever he wanted.

Homer illustrates all of the tension, most of it involving the family from his parents, his brother. These tensions affected Homer forming some of the obstacles he faced as he was growing up and working on his rocket project (Hickam, "Determination drove country's historic race to the moon"). Homer Hickam Jr., like any other great hero, faced challenges and obstacles but due to his dedication, discipline, perseverance and above believing in himself was able to rise and stand as a hero who not only achieved his dreams but made use of all the abilities he had.

Works Cited

http://homerhickam.com/about-homer/Hickam, Homer. "Determination drove country's historic race to the moon." USA Today, September 27, 2010, p. 39. U.S. History in Context.

Hickam, Homer H. Rocket boys: A Memoir. Random House Digital, Inc., 2000.

Hickam, Homer H. October sky. Dell, 1999.Accessed on 5.2.2019

http://dilbert.thegdl.org/services/bob/guides/Rocket%20Boys%20-%20Homer%20Hickam.pdfGoll, James G., Lindsay J. Wilkinson, and Dolores M. Snell. "Teaching chemistry using October sky." Journal of Chemical Education 86.2 (2009): 177. http://cgp.edgewood.edu/portals/ChemistryGeosciencePhysics/_resources/PDF/Goll-misc/Goll-poster-7-15-08.pdf

Hickam Jr, Homer. Torpedo Junction: U-boat War Off America's East Coast, 1942. Naval Institute Press, 2014.

Mitcham, Carl. "Dasein versus design: The problematics of turning making into thinking." International Journal of Technology and Design Education 11.1 (2001): 27-36. Accessed on 5.2.2019 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carl_Mitcham/publication/226489358_Dasein_Versus_Design_The_Problematics_of_Turning_Making_Into_Thinking/links/5a70b7930f7e9ba2e1cb06fa/Dasein-Versus-Design-The-Problematics-of-Turning-Making-Into-Thinking.pdf