NPM : 21214826
KELAS: 3EB31
ON
CONDITION
If
someone had told me when I was at school, I would not have believed it. If I
tell people today, they say they have not heard of it. Of course it was along
time ago. But it is true: if you were
18, you had to do something called national service. If you were reasonably
fit, you would have to report to a millitary barracks near where you lived. If
I had taken the trouble to think about the practical side of the matter, i
could have chosen a different service. There were after all the navy and the
airforce. The navy wasn’t very likely unless you had dozens of uncles and
grandparents in the service before you. In my case this didn’t apply at all.
The airforce somehow appealed. I liked the idea if tearing through the skies
away from it all. If I think about it now, I just can’t imagine why I liked the
idea especially since flying for me
today is a total nighmare.
It
probably came from Great Aunty Mary -
she wasn’t that big but she had acquired the tittle “great” because
she’d been alive for so long. Anyhow she used to say : “ if you really do your
national service, you’ll probably be a pilot. I can just see you sitting in a
nice aeroplane.” Of course if you objected to any type of violence againts your
fellow man, you could always object – officially I mean. If you thought along
those lines, you were called a “conscientious objector” and you had to appear
before a special tribunal and explain your reasons. Again you would probably be
exempt from millitary service if you came from a long line conscientious
objectors. In that case you would work in a hospital for two years as a porter.
But then my family didn’t do a lot of objecting. I came from an ancestral
background who generally agreed with the majority.
We didn’t make a fuss.
The general philosophy that prevailed was: “if I were you dear, I’d get on with
it.” On top that I wasn’t very conscientious either. We had a black sheep in
the family of course. He telephoned me shortly before my 18th birthday and
said: “if you really want to get out of doing a national service, I’ll help you
all I can. If I were you, I’d do what I’m doing.” His idea was to live abroad
until he was 26 and then come home. It seemed a bit extreme to me. If he’d
known what happened in the end, he would have done it here because he got
caught for millitary service in the other country where he was living. For
those few months after I was 18 I was like a cat on a hot tin foor. If the
telephone rang, i would jump in the air.
If the postman arrived
late, I couldn’t relax until he had delivered the post and I checked every
item. My parents said: “if you don’t relax, you’ll end up having a nervous break
down. If the does come, there’s, nothing you can do about it. If I were you....” but I didn’t listen to the
rest if the sentence because a though had come into my mind. Supposing I were,
mad, supposing I didn’t know, who I was, supposing I pretended, that I didn’t
understand a word anybody was saying – surely the Queen wouldn’t want, a madman
in her army. I tried it for a few days but it was too much like hard work. You
can imagine the comments: “If you’re, trying to get out of conscriotion by
pretending to be barmy, just forget, it because it isn’t working.... if you honestly
imagine, that yoou mother and I are taken in by this stupid behaviour the you
are, very much mistaken. I can only repeat I were you...” Time passed slowly
and I begin to think that if I kept quiet about it, maybe the army would forget
about me.
One bright on autumn
day in September after a particularly good night’s sleep I strolled downstairs and
saw what I took to be a postcard. A card from a late holiday maker perhaps? It
wasn’t. It was a card informing me that I had to report to H.M. Tower of London
and giving me a permission to travel there by underground – one-way only of
course. And that’s how I came to spend the first part of my national service in
the Tower. Nobody now believes me if I tell them I was there for three monts
but then I still have the emotional scars to prove it. They tell that if you
want to visit the Tower as a tourist nowadays, it is quite expensive. I haven’t
been back. I think three months is long enough if you want to get to know a
place. There are other places of interest near the City of London. Now, if I
were you..
Pada artikel diatas terdapat Conditional Sentence
yaitu :
1. Conditional
Sentence Type 1 :
·
Paragraf 2 kalimat ke-2 : “If you really
do your national service, you’ll probably be a pilot”
·
Paragraf 3 kalimat ke-5 : “If you really
want to get out of doing a national service, I will help you all I can”
2. Conditional
Sentence Type 2 :
·
Paragraf 1 kalimat ke-5 : “If you were
reasonably fit, you would have to report to a millitary barracks near where you
lived”
·
Paragraf 4 kalimat ke-1 : “If the
postman arrived late, I couldn’t relax unti he had delivered the post”
3. Conditional
Sentence Type 3 :
·
Paragraf 1 kalimat ke-1 : “If someone
told me when I was at school, i would not have believed it”
·
Paragar 1 kalimat ke-6 : “If I had taken
the trouble to think about the practical side of the matter, I could have
chosen a different service”
Referensi :
http://www.english-test.net/lessons/13/index.html
(Diakses 22 Mei 2017)
