Ft. Knox: Day 3

We are starting to get in the swing of things here at Ft. Knox. Did the morning routine, went running for a few miles and Hatchdaddy was leading us in cadence and on the spot he made up another verse of a well know cadence in Spanish. Basically we killed a snake with a machete in Mexico, not bad. Then we basically spent in entire day in Spanish in class and giving a few more of the presentations. The only real thing of note was the different stories people told of making innocent, but serious mistakes in Spanish. My personal favorite was when our professor Bullock told a story of a gentlemen from Puerto Rico who wanted to catch the bus. What he said was "quiero cojer a una guagua." In his country that means, "I want to catch a bus"  but in Chile, where he was at it actually means is "I want to have (vulgar) sex with a baby." to say the least the people were not amused, so much so that they called the police on suspicion and he was arrested. It is literally dangerous learning another language, even if you think you know it... But we all have many stories like that, trying to speak Spanish and failing epically. So basically after today we only have one more left of actuall classes, and yes, learning Spanish here is like taking a drink of water with a fire hose. 

Ft. Knox: Day 2

So today we had lights on at 0515, which means I got about six hours of sleep,which is actually more than I had all last week, but that's just me... Then we had good ol army PT, just a quick run and then an hour or so in the gym. I just tried not to drop the bar on my face during the bench press. Then followed the normal army routine in the morning, shower, shave, change, make sure the uniform looks legit. Went to one of DFACs here on post, amazing as far as DFACs go. Then the infamous in processing of the military. Honestly though, it went incredibly fast for in processing, We were done by lunch. Also, we only lost two cadets to the needle. Cadet Hatch, our resident airborne, air assault, mountain warfare, future special forces soldier in fact has a weakness-shots, and he got 5... It was rough for him to say the least-he passed out. Which completely flustered the nurse and made her a pain in, well the inside of the elbow actually. So then we had lunch-woo hoo-and then started out our classes with our instructor from the Defense Language Institute. Now most of us have had Spanish experience, but not everybody was equal. Thus in order to assess the actual level of Spanish we each gave 20 mintue presentations completely in spansih on a preassigned topics with a powerpoint. For example I went first and my topic was actually how the Chilean military was organized. We went over the size and technology of each branch of the military, their ranks, and their structure. We then had a short discussion on the experiences we are likely to have in Chile. We went through about half the cadets and then had dinner before finishing our day with a few words from our instructor, Clinton Bullock, and then a brief from LTC Boberg. Suffice to say it was difficult to stay awake. Not because the briefings were bad or boring, quite the opposite, we were just beat and ready for bed. Which we eventually got.

Getting to Ft. Knox: Day 1

So today we had lights on at 0515, which means I got about six hours of sleep,which is actually more than I had all last week, but that's just me... Then we had good ol army PT, just a quick run and then an hour or so in the gym. I just tried not to drop the bar on my face during the bench press. Then followed the normal army routine in the morning, shower, shave, change, make sure the uniform looks legit. Went to one of DFACs here on post, amazing as far as DFACs go. Then the infamous in processing of the military. Honestly though, it went incredibly fast for in processing, We were done by lunch. Also, we only lost two cadets to the needle. Cadet Hatch, our resident airborne, air assault, mountain warfare, future special forces soldier in fact has a weakness-shots, and he got 5... It was rough for him to say the least-he passed out. Which completely flustered the nurse and made her a pain in, well the inside of the elbow actually. So then we had lunch-woo hoo-and then started out our classes with our instructor from the Defense Language Institute. Now most of us have had Spanish experience, but not everybody was equal. Thus in order to assess the actual level of Spanish we each gave 20 mintue presentations completely in spansih on a preassigned topics with a powerpoint. For example I went first and my topic was actually how the Chilean military was organized. We went over the size and technology of each branch of the military, their ranks, and their structure. We then had a short discussion on the experiences we are likely to have in Chile. We went through about half the cadets and then had dinner before finishing our day with a few words from our instructor, Clinton Bullock, and then a brief from LTC Boberg. Suffice to say it was difficult to stay awake. Not because the briefings were bad or boring, quite the opposite, we were just beat and ready for bed. Which we eventually got.