这篇ESSAY的结构来源于N. Scott Momaday写得小说《雨山行》（The Way to Rainy Mountain）。主要有三个主要部分：传奇篇、现实篇、个人篇。换句话理解，即：口述历史、线性历史与现实历史。最后一部分将先辈与当代人的重大事实结合在了一起。
经过长达十年的旅行和战争，奥德休斯（Odysseus）早已厌倦了。一个平静的早晨，在美丽的埃塞克城（Ithaca）的圣海边，奥迪休斯醒了，沐浴在圣海的细沙之中。但是，他明白他的敌人蓄谋已久要跟他的妻子，优雅的潘妮洛普（Pemelope）结婚，目的只为了在他曾经的木床上拥有她。那张木床是奥德休斯亲手雕刻而成的，它象征了代表正义的埃塞克王朝彻底被征服。奥德休斯终于想到了一个计划。很快所有的追随者就会臣服在象征着胜利的神箭下，而这把箭血染了多少敌人。最后，他成功的夺回了属于他的一切，和深爱的妻儿幸福生活在了一起。而勇敢的儿子在他死后继承埃塞克的王位。
1943年9月3日，意大利法西斯与同盟国签署了一份休战协议。不久，意大利就被横穿阿尔卑斯山的德国军队和已经攻占加黎波里半岛（the Peninsula）的军队占领。所有早已在其它国家前线作战的将士，包括非洲前线的部队，都沦落为“空头部队”。所有的海军在地中海地区和中部沦陷地区四窜逃离。面临残暴的纳粹组织的报复行为，例如在希腊凯法利尼亚(Kefalonia)岛发生的一例，这些意大利士兵必需谨慎考虑该站在哪边。他们应该投靠法西斯，还是继续保持中立，又或者是加入游击队和同盟国（英、美）为自己国家的独立解放而战斗。
我的祖父就是当年成千上万将士中的一员。他在1936年到1940年这4年间一直在厄立特里亚高地开坦克，1940年到1943年3年间在利比亚荒原开抗钢铁机器。在意大利妥协前在被同盟国强迫从地中海地区撤退前，他一直捍卫着西西里岛和意大利南部地区。由于他站错了队伍导致他做出了无畏的牺牲，最后他挣扎着徒步返回了维琴查城。十几年后的军旅生涯当他再次回到妻子身边时，他才发现原来一切远远没有结束。他必须要为他自己的错误赎罪，还要过偷偷摸摸着躲避德军的日子。一旦被他们抓到，就会以“逃兵”的名义被处决。这种日子一直延续着延续着直到1945年4月。那一天纳粹彻底被驱逐出意大利。1953年祖父因风车的一次意外丢下了自己的妻子和一个仅六岁大的儿子，抛弃了二战后的意大利，那个常年捍卫着的，为了重拾更多的生命而在敌国夹缝里生存下来的祖父却在这个时候离开了。
2004年冬季的圣诞节，我和我的祖母、父亲还有母亲一起去给祖父扫墓。我们帮他扫去覆盖着的冰雪，我们想要铭记这位遭遇种种历尽沧桑不远万里回归家园只为我们明天过得更好的军人。
我只能从后来遗留下的2张照片来了解我的祖父。一张是他婚礼的照片，另外一张是在非洲作战时候照的。祖母每每看到这张坦克旅和其中一个瘦小的非洲小孩儿就会发笑。我瞻仰着这个熟悉而又陌生的人，这个充满歧视的战争时期，他可以坦然的抱着这个黑色皮肤的小孩儿，微笑着……而这在任何欧洲人还是美国人看来，都是不可思议的。我的祖父走得太匆忙了：他几乎没有机会跟我讲述他的人生经历和他的想法；他甚至没有机会抱抱我陪着我一起长大。但是每当我看到这张照片，他总能说服我不管这个世界存在多少邪恶、龌龊还有不堪，都不要放弃人本性的善良。我们要一直把它一代代传承下去，包括我们身边的人。我努力的去感受这张照片带给我的感动和感觉，我努力的想要做一个跟祖父一样的男人。今天的我们是幸运的也是幸福的，因为我们今天不用去面对当年祖父他们一辈要面对的问题。但这并不能成为我们不需要过往学习的借口，因为相同的历史已经上演过无数次了。但只要我们珍惜先辈们留给我们一切，相信明天一定会更加美好。
ESSAY赏析
文章开头大胆的有点儿“吓人”。作者引用Momaday的小说开头堪称“独到”。但对于没有看过这部小说的人来说会比较冒险；并且作者的文章格式也不同于一般的ESSAY要求。虽然作者开头的背景描述简单易懂，但是跟这篇文章关系不大。
直到作者从个人视角来描写故事的时候才渐入佳境。文章第四、五段形象激烈的情节描写将读者置入身临其境之中。其实介绍家庭成员对个人的影响是一个很普遍的话题，大部分都会将重点放在人物道德上。而作者却一改前人风格，将此主题进行了一大逆转。不但描写了自己在故事中吸取的先辈教训，更重要的是抒发了“缺憾”。他让读者了解了他们也许错失了多少和作者一样的宝贵机会，并且用一种轻松而又强烈方式的表达了个人能力。
—Marc Steinberg
美文鉴赏
(44)GIACOMO BAGARELLA—“GLI STRATI DELLA STORIA (THE LAYERS OF HISTORY)”
This essay is structured on the form of N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain. There are three distinct parts: the sacred, the secular, and the private. In other words, oral history, linear history, and experiential history, respectively. The last piece connects a significant artifact from a previous generation with the present.
Odysseus the Astute was weary after ten years of war and ten more of exhausting travels. One quiet morning, he awoke ashore on his beautiful Ithaca, washed up on the familiar sand by the sea of Destiny. There, however, he learned that his enemies had been long since planning a marriage to his wife, the graceful Penelope, in order to lie with her in his bed of living wood. A bed which he himself had carved, a bed whose usurpation would mean the vanquishing of the rightful Ithacan dynasty. Odysseus furtively organized a plan; soon all of the suitors fell under his mighty blade and arrows, which had slain many an enemy before. He then took back what was his by birthright, and led a peaceful existence with his beloved wife and brave son, who would succeed upon his father’s death to the throne of Ithaca.
On September 3, 1943, Fascist Italy signed an armistice with the Allies. Soon after, the country was taken over by German forces crossing the Alps and by those already present on the peninsula. All Italian soldiers who had fought for their country on various fronts, including the African one, had been left to themselves. These veterans were dispersed all over the Mediterranean and in the middle of a terrible situation. Faced with violent Nazi reprisals, such as the one on the Greek island of Kefalonia, these men had to decide where they stood. Would they keep on fighting for the Fascist regime, remain neutral and withdraw from the conflict, or join the partisans and British and American forces to free their homeland from the Germans?
My paternal grandfather, Rodolfo Bagarella, was among these thousands of war-weary soldiers. He had piloted tanks in the highlands of Eritrea between 1936 and 1940, and spent the years between 1940 and 1943 maneuvering the steel machines in the sandy plains of Libya. Forced back across the Mediterranean by the Allied advance, he defended Sicily and Southern Italy until Italy’s capitulation. Resolved that his fight for the wrong side had ended, he struggled his way back home to Vicenza by foot. He returned to his wife after having been gone for nearly ten years of military service, but his troubles were not yet over. He had to work to provide for his kin, and he also had to hide from German soldiers. They would have executed him as a “deserter” if they had caught him. This lasted until April 1945, when the Nazis were finally driven out of Italy. When Nonno Rodolfo died in an accident on his job in the family windmill in 1953, he left a widow and my six-year-old father, alone in post–World War II Italy, to fend for themselves and rebuild their lives amidst a ravaged country.
In the winter of 2004, during the Christmas holidays, I visited my grandfather’s grave with my grandmother, father, and mother, cleaning it and breaking the ice to remember a man who had come back from distant lands and suffered to make his country ours again.
I know Nonno Rodolfo from two pictures. One of them is his wedding picture. The other is shot in Africa, and my grandfather is smiling with his tank crew and a young African child. I look up to this man, who in times of war and discrimination could show such a soothing smile and hug a kid who would have been set aside for the color of his skin, both in Europe and America. My grandfather never had the chance to tell me about his life, his opinions; he never had the opportunity to hold me on his lap and instruct me on how to grow up. But when I look at that picture, I think that no matter how much evil there is in the world, we can always hold goodness within ourselves and spread it to the people closest to us. I try to follow the feeling this old picture gives me, try to be like my grandfather in actions and thought. Luckily for everyone today, our times are much different from those he lived in. This is not an excuse, however, not to learn from the past. It has already repeated itself too many times, but if we all cherish the good our ancestors left us, then maybe the future will indeed be brighter.
COMMENTARY
The formal structure of this essay makes it a daring one. The introductory allusion to Momaday’s novel is certainly a unique opening; however, it seems to be lost on those who haven’t read the work, and the mere act of beginning the essay with a structural outline comes across as slightly formulaic for a personal statement. Indeed, the background information is necessary for anyone who has not read the work, but the space devoted to illuminating the novel more than the individual in question is a real gamble.
That said, the essay is most successful when the author takes a personalized approach. The vivid detail and striking storytelling abilities manifested in the fourth and fifth paragraphs effectively draw the reader’s attention to the deeper story being told in the essay. Writing an essay about the importance of a family member and the values that he or she instilled is a commonplace topic, and one runs the risk of boring an admissions officer simply by virtue of that fact. The author avoids that pitfall, however, by writing not about the lessons he learned from his elder, but rather the lack thereof. By flipping the convention on its head, he forces readers to ponder what their own elders might have taught them had they had the chance, and shows his ability to draw meaning from complex problems and issues with ease.
—Marc Steinberg
