I wrote this for school, and up untill 2022 I stood by it. Now I might contrive a way to keep my daugter home that night. I want to point out that other than that one event I would travel in time and observe if given the chance. But strictly observe.
 
The assignment was to answer this. 
 
If you were given the power to go back in time and change any one event, with the stipulation that you would be stuck back there. What, if anything, would you change?
 

 
If given the power to go back in time and change any single event in human history, I would leave things as they are. Experience is the grit of who we are, both individually and as a people. I would love to travel in time.
 
At first, I would be tempted, for selfish reasons, to change my life. Some of the biggest lessons in my life came from affairs of the heart, most of which were painful. I would be spared so much anguish today if I had never met and wed Elizabeth, my first wife. To this very day, she harasses me to no end. We married foolishly and carelessly. I was too immature and soon fell out of love. In the turmoil of a rocky marriage, she chose to stop taking her birth control pills without telling me. She then gave birth to my daughter Winter, whom I have grown to love more than I would have imagined possible.
 
Perhaps I would never have dated my second wife, Phyllis, who in turn broke my heart as I did Elizabeth’s, teaching me the consequences of my actions. When she left, I wanted to change whatever it was about me that caused her to leave. But the truth is, I would never have changed a thing if she had not gone. Post 9/11, I had lost much of my kindness and my ability to communicate my emotions. If Phyllis had not broken my heart, I would never have sought counseling for my post-traumatic stress, and I would never have met Peggy, a wonderful woman I have dated longer than my first two wives combined and with whom I am deeply in love. Had I not learned the lessons from Beth and Phyllis, I doubt Peggy would have wanted to be with me.
 
In 36 years of living, I have made a number of other life choices that I might contemplate changing: I joined the Army 13 years ago instead of pursuing an education; I left the Army 2 years ago instead of pursuing retirement; and I gave up a lucrative career to go back to school full-time last month. I have also been subject to history, as well as the actions and decisions of others. I crossed the Sava River into war-torn Bosnia with the initial United States peacekeeping force in 1995 and was in one of the Pentagon offices that received a transcontinental airliner on the 11th of September 2001. Each of these choices brought me one step closer to where I am now. I would not be who I am today without these experiences and decisions.
 
Like who I have become, I prefer to attempt to change a world event, something that affects us as a people. But am I wise enough to make a change and predict what ripples to seemingly unlinked events could occur?
Perhaps I would change the attack on 9/11, but where would I make the change? I could remove myself from the Pentagon that day, but would that mean that the people I saved might die? For the longest time, I hated myself for not returning to the room to save more people, but if I had returned, would I have been here today? Would I catch the terrorists in the act only to find that the nation continued to take the terrorist threat as a joke? Perhaps our government would continue to allow our intelligence community to be underfunded and over-compartmentalized. Maybe this would set a stage where the terrorists’ next attempt would be grander and more devastating. Perhaps I would change the policies within our country that anger these terrorists, but which policies would I change, and who would I alienate in the process? My change might lead to a more enormous tragedy with a different set of people.
 
Take another event, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, for example. If I were to stop the events of the 7th of December, 1941, would the U.S. have entered the war and spawned what is still known today as the greatest generation–men and women like my grandparents who learned what it meant to sacrifice for the common good? Role models like them may be lost to a generation of self-interest and indulgence because of my change.
 
I do not wish to glorify these tragedies, but I know that we are born of the events around us, both great and sorrowful. We are the sum of our experiences as a race as well. Would we know the value of peace without war? Imagine a world with no calamities, no lost loves, and no wars or strife. In a world like that, what would poets, singers, and writers know of the human soul and our ability to overcome adversity?
 
My philosophy would lead me to turn down such an outstanding power. I have learned to live my life by two principles. First, no matter what joy, fear, hope, or tragedy we suffer today, “this too shall pass.” Second, it is best to live in the present. Learn from the past, and fear not the future, for it will never really get here. The best way to make our world better is to learn from our history and apply it to today.