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I gave your PS a quick glance (I have class in a few), and I'll try and look it over when I get back, but I have a few suggestions.

Your background story is interesting, but you need to spend more time tying it to your decision to attend law school. There are unnecessary details (how much you had to pay for the goat and chickens) and I think you can cut down some of this excess information and expand on the "why law school" paragraph.

HTH

holy crap, I loved this.

submit

its good, very good. i didnt look at grammar but content wise, i think it is done

This is pretty good, but could be great. Most people will honor your service and the weight of this experience and thus, may not give you the hard criticism that could make the PS better. I would just be careful of that and find people that are willing to look at it very critically. By the way, you get it just right in balancing your human ability to deal with the protracted problems over there. Not overly confident, nor impotent. I like that aspect the most.

Here are a few quick criticisms.

To summarize the situation that led to this dysfunctional level of dissonance impacting the lives of hundreds, The current discord stemmed from a legal controversy over wages. the villagers provided local labor for a six month road project on the promise that the government would pay them. Hundreds were without money to live. However, if the villagers took to violence, it would result not from the injury, but from the insult.

This is too informal. Good writers do not tell you here comes the summary, they just summarize.

The learning curve in combat is steep [this is a platitude, what are you specifically trying to say?] and through this experience I had a much better idea of the importance of my service to my country, Afghanistan, and most importantly my men.[if your men are most important, show that linguistically by breaking it out into a separate sentence or at least listing it first]

When I reacted in a way that I imagine most Americans would, that of instant self preservation by taking cover behind the first solid object I could find, the Afghan elders all looked at me like I was the crazy one for getting startled.

Use the active voice to make this more crisp, (e.g. When, in an act of self-preservation, I dove for cover behind the closest solid object I could find, the Afghan elders looked at me with patronizing bewilderment. I had done more to disrupt the meeting than the grenade in a world where incoming bombs were a part of daily life.)

As a consequence of my actions on one particular mission, over two dozen U.S. and Afghan Soldiers were able to make it out of an eight hour ambush with no loss of life.

Was it only your actions that saved the troops or was it also their courage and skill? If it was just your actions, you need to tell us what you did. Otherwise you should rephrase this. Some may tell you not to be dramatic, but in this situation I think drama is integral. Why say loss of life when you can say, "without any of my friends being killed or carried away in pieces."

If Afghanistan had a competent legal system, those villagers would have the means to go about addressing their issues with their government.

With your background, I think you try too hard to tie this experience into law school. These people have many great problems, only one of which is an archaic and cruel system of justice. Your thinking sounds simplistic, IMO, when you try to make this connection. It would be better to say, my critical role was to get my men home safely, but my most important role was to mediate disputes and resolve controversies. Justice offers an alternative to violence. And, I want to keep doing that in my next endeavor.

Thanks for everyones feedback.

Kublaikhan, you make some great points that will definitely help my PS. Unfortunately, I do not think I am good enough at writing to make some of those points not sound awkward... specifically, my mention of the ambush event, and my closing trying to tie my next (law school) endeavor to my past. Hope I can pull it off.

I bump shamelessly.

sorry if my bumping offends others. I am just desperate for feedback