The Beginning of the End

As a civilian, I took everything I had for granted and my time during New Cadet Week taught me that life is hell, but you learn to life with it. During this week of basic training, I learned a few things about myself that I probably would've never known unless I joined the Corp of Cadets. One, I lacked the discipline that I needed to become a military officer. Two, I was so much weaker mentally, physically, and emotionally than I had originally thought. Three, I learned that life isn't all about games, and that you have to work really hard to get maybe a few minutes out of the day to rest, relax, and think about what just happened. Four, I needed to learn to come out of my shell and stop working as an individual all the time, I needed to start working as a team with my buds. These invaluable lessons will be forever engraved into my mind and won’t be easily forgotten. The real part of this awfully dreaded beginning of my life began on August 17^th, 2013.

I didn't sleep very well the night of the 16th, which would become the last real night of me being individualistic and sheltered. As the night progressed, random thoughts kept popping in my head about what to expect out of this new week, let alone my new military life. I kept tossing and turning and finally fell asleep somewhere in the early hours of the morning and woke up to my brother shaking me like a ragdoll. I got up, very tired, and decided to start my day with a nice, hot, relaxing shower that I realized later on was the best shower I had taken before entering the Corp of Cadets. After packing my things and some early tears from my mom in the hotel room, we hit the road and showed up at Brodie Hall, which was the drop-off point for our belongings. I was then told to go to Torgerson Hall to start the transformation process of becoming a new cadet, with my pops, mom, and brother unpacking my things at the car. Tears were streaming down her face as her son was walking away, going to start a new life, she couldn't have been more proud of what I was doing that day. Inside Torgerson Hall, I was directed to where I was supposed to go, waited in lines, took some tests, and received some “essential materials” for New Cadet Week. This was only the beginning of what was to become the best, worst week of my life to ever have been experienced in my lifetime.

I finally met up with my parents with my “Highspeed” haircut and started unpacking the room and my belongings. After an hour of clutter and mess, we finally got the room set, we then decided to have the last supper at D2 dining facility. I walked back to my room with my parents, told them goodbye and started training immediately after that to show our parents what we could learn in a few hours. After some hours of training, we went outside of Brodie Hall and formed up, performed a few of the actions we learned, and then dragged back into Brodie without being able to say goodbye to our parents. As I was dragging into Brodie, I had one last look at my parents and my brother and saw my pops proud face, my mom’s crying face, and my brother playing his DSI. Stay tuned for the next blog on how I survived New Cadet Week.