Finally, the day is almost here. Red Phase for new cadets ends this Saturday. I can’t believe it’s already been 5 weeks since the start of New Cadet week and Red Phase. Time has gone by so fast and now the Caldwell March is already upon us. The Caldwell March is kind of like a rite of passage signifying new cadets becoming cadets in the corps. Virginia Tech was originally called the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. When it first opened on October 1, 1872, the 1^st student to register was William Addison Caldwell, and he happened to register as a cadet. Now, to register as a student he had to walk a total of 26 miles from his home to the campus. As a tradition, new cadets now walk in his footsteps. This Saturday we will march the 1^st 13 miles of the trail he took to get here. We complete the rest of the journey at the end of the year, signifying we made it through the 1^st year without dropping the program. But you have no idea how good it feels that I will now be considered a member of the corps. I will no longer be a new cadet in training. Don’t get me wrong, because I am still a freshman I still won’t have very many privileges. I still have to be in uniform all day, sound off to upperclassmen, and have room and uniform inspections. But that’s just White phase. I mean they can’t make it easy for freshman the rest of the year. Now my next goal is to earn the title Deuce Deuce. As a member of Training Company 2-2, we have a chance to earn this prestigious title. It’s a title of honor that no other TC in the regiment can receive. To earn it, my TC and I have to be the best. We have to be the loudest, the strongest, the most dedicated, and the most motivated. Motivation is the single most important thing to the corps. We have to show the cadre, the upperclassmen, and Officers that we want to be here, that we belong here. We have a tradition of excellence to live up to.

                Not only will I become a member of the corps this Saturday, but I am officially a member of the Air Force ROTC. To become a member of the Air Force ROTC we had to pass the PFA, or the physical fitness assessment. I took it this morning and I’m proud to say that I passed. I maxed out on sit-ups and I set a new PR, or personal record, for my mile and a half time. Now that I’ve passed, I’ve earned my Air Force PT gear. This may not mean that much to you, but to us it means a lot. It means we’ve earned our place among the upperclassmen. People in the military grow a bond with each other that is closer than family, and to be a part of that, after all my hard work, just means the world to me.

         

I couldn't really decide on what to write about, so my roommate just told me to write about an unforgettable experience. So that's exactly what I'm going to do because I can’t think of anything better.

My most unforgettable experience was my first trip to Guatemala. Guatemala is the home of my whole family on my father's side. So because I had never been there, the purpose of this trip was to meet my family. Now one of my uncles is a pastor and he founded a missionary group called Medical Mission Ministries. The purpose of this group is to go to different villages and spread the word of God and give medicine. The group also has its own medical doctors, a dentist, and an optometrist. The mission group’s base of operations is his own home and believe me, it’s freakin huge. It probably fits more people than the one that live in your entire floor. Now he has made many contacts with Christian churches in the US, mainly in Georgia, and throughout the year they send groups of about 30 people, parents and teenagers, to my uncle’s house. The groups stay for about a week and every day they go to a different village with my uncle and his staff. While my uncle and the doctors see the patients and hand out medicine, the “gringos” form gospel stations and preach the word of God. However, because they don’t speak Spanish, they need interpreters. The interpreters form the final part of the mission group. The interpreters are a group of about 10 Christians ranging from ages of 13 to 23.

This is where I come in. While I was staying with my uncle, one day he invited me to go along with the group to the village. And because I’m fluent in Spanish and English he had me work as an interpreter. That day changed my life. With my own two eyes I saw a miracle happen. A girl walked in escorted by her mother. The mother told us her daughter was 23 and had been born deaf. We all gathered around the girl, placed our hands on her shoulders, and began to pray. We prayed for about 10 minutes, when all of a sudden the girl starts yelping and moaning in joy, signaling to us that she could hear us! If that’s not the power of God, I don’t know what is. I spent the rest of my summer at my uncle’s house working as a missionary.

However, being an interpreter was not my only job. I also go to work at the kid’s station, where we played soccer and just had fun with the kids while their parents were seeing the doctors. I got to work as the dentist’s assistant too. This involved handing her the tools and holding the flashlight for her while she pulled rotten teeth out. Finally I got to work at our pharmacy table, which just meant I prepared necessary doses of all the medicine to give to the people.

Besides the feeling of being able to help people less fortunate than you, the best part of the trip was just getting to meet so many people. Because all of the interpreters are around the same age we all became really close friends, as well as with the “gringo” teenagers from the church groups. I know I formed lifelong friendships with all of them.   

You might think its lame that I keep writing blogs about being in the Corps of Cadets, but right now it’s the biggest, most important thing going on in my life. So I’m writing this blog to give you guys an idea of what we have to go through on a daily basis, specifically in terms of punishments.

Each TC (Training Company) has its own set of rules and privileges for the freshmen. I happen to be in TC 2-2, Foxtrot Company, and we have absolutely no privileges. For example, we don’t have backpack privilege, meaning we can’t carry our backpacks on our backs. We have to carry them in our left hand everywhere we go. We also don’t have right face privilege. This means that we quite literally are not allowed to turn to the right. We have to turn to the left 3 times or turn to the left once and then do an about face, which is just a 180˚ turn. Another rule is that we have to sign out on our door card every time we leave our room. The cadres have to know our whereabouts at all times. However, to sign out we have to use a grease pen instead of a dry erase marker. And the only way to clean the grease pen off is to clean it with Brasso, and this takes about 6 minutes to do. Another privilege we don’t have is pocket privilege. We can’t put anything in our pockets. So where do we put our things? We put them in our freakin socks. One of the most annoying rules however,  is that while we are on upper quad we have to walk on the right side at all times. This rule applies to all dorm buildings and outside on the sidewalk. So if we are in our rooms and have to go to the bathroom, we have to go along the right side through the entire hallway just to get there. There is also a demerit system. For every 10 demerits we receive we have to march for 1 hour on Saturday at 5 in the morning.

What sucks the most is that we don’t get to have any fun. As freshmen in the corps we’re not allowed to join any sports teams or clubs. Any time that we are not in class, we’re doing something with the corps. So basically, the corps owns our asses. At night while civilian students are having fun partying or just hanging out with friends, I’m stuck in my room doing homework, ironing shirts and pants, shining shoes, and polishing my belt. All of this is due to our 4 hours of mandatory study time. In the mornings, civilian students get to sleep in for however long they want. I on the other hand, can have my 1^st class be at 1:25pm and I still have to wake up at 5:30 for morning formation. This is every day by the way.

And to top it all off, they won’t let us go to the Victoria Secret modeling show! I mean come on, where is the decency in that?

It is amazing how many things have happened to me in just 2 short weeks.  I can safely say that the last 13 days have been the hardest of my life. Each day since starting my training in the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets has been one crazy roller coaster ride after another. However, whether it is another obstacle, another hardship, or just another cadre yelling in my face, I won’t let anything stand in my way of becoming an officer in the Air Force.

To start off with, I’ll simply say that new cadet week was hell. I don’t think we ever made it 10 minutes without being yelled at. Some of the biggest pains were the time hacks. Everything we did was timed. We only had 10 minutes to eat, 3 minutes to get dressed, and 3 minutes to shower (which is pretty difficult to do with 14 guys and only 6 shower heads). We also had superman drills. They consisted of getting dressed in uniform properly and returning outside in 3 minutes. Then we would repeat this process several times with different uniforms. I honestly don’t think any of the 30 people in my training company ever managed to beat these time hacks. Apart from that, we were constantly marching; in the hot sun might I add. We spent most days learning how to properly march in formation. After 2 or 3 days we began marching with riffles. By the end of the week there wasn’t a single person without a sunburned scalp. Throughout the week we learned how to properly make our uniforms. We had to iron creases, shine shoes, polish brass, and lint roll our clothes. Not only did our uniforms have to be perfect, but our rooms as well. They had to be spotless because they were inspected every day. I don’t think my room has ever been so clean. I have to make my bed to corps standards, shine the sink, sweep the floor, dust all the furniture, and properly fold and store my clothes. All of this is done 2 or 3 times a day because rooms can be inspected at any time. Probably the hardest part for me was learning all of the cadres’ and cadet officers’ names.  We also had to learn the first and last name of the 30 people in our TC, their major, and what ROTC they are in. But to be honest, I still don’t know them. However there were some bright spots to the week. We got the chance to try out the obstacle course and the rappel tower. My favorite part was rappelling down the 40 foot wall.

The football game last night made all of my hard work worth it. At 1930 we all marched in formation to Lane stadium. Everyone was clapping and cheering as we were going by and I realized how much everyone respects the Corps. The best part of the night was when we got to walk out onto the field and form the tunnel for the football team. The bright lights and screaming fans were overwhelming and I couldn’t help breaking my military bearing to smile. I don’t care how lame this sounds but something happened during halftime that truly touched my heart. My bud and I went to the concession stand to get a drink when a 5 year old boy and his grandfather came up to us. The boy wanted to shake our hands. He told us that we are an inspiration to him and he want to be like us when he is older. His grandfather took a picture of us and thanked us for what we are doing; for preparing to serve our country in the world’s greatest military. The night ended with a bang when Virginia Tech won the game. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of my career here at Virginia Tech in the Corps of Cadets.