They had a good teacher
Posted on 12/03/2009 5:29:16 AM PST by izzatzo
Play Slideshow PauseSlowMedFast Photo Gallery . Tue Dec 1, 6:35 PM ET . Previous 485 of 580 Next . A U.S. Army cadet reads a book entitled "Kill Bin Laden" as he waits with other cadets for U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver an address on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York December 1, 2009. Obama is expected to announce a plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan over six months in a bid to beat back the Taliban and bring a quicker end to a costly and unpopular eight-year war. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES POLITICS CONFLICT) Photo Tools EmailIMPrintPurchase Cart
HOORAY U.S. Army cadets!
I agree about the nodding off. My son graduated from the Air Force Academy. Sometimes he would go 48 hours or more without anything but a few minutes of catnaps and it wasn’t because of parties, it was the work load they put on the cadets. I remember at the annual parents day parades there would always be cadets that would literally faint on the parade grounds. My son would say “you are to busy to find time to eat and that is what happens”; some faint. One year we counted 24 out of the 4,000 or so on the grounds that fainted during the course of the marching and field drills.
We had a plebe at Annapolis get openned up by a bayonet on the parade ground when he fainted. Wasn’t just lack of sleep. The heat & humidity in August was absolutely tropical. If you locked your knees you were a goner.
Forgot to add that I heard yesterday these cadets had to be in in their seats in the stadium hours before the President spoke for security reasons.
That is ridiculous. Bush would never have allowed these deidcated young men & women to have to sit for hours twiddling their thumbs - he understood the military.
Oh ya, I forgot about the locking the knees. My son said that is a big mistake. It was sometimes fairly hot in early September when the parents week events happen also at USAFA. You add the excitement, the lack of sleep, being so busy you compromise eating for study time. I am surprised more don’t keel over on the parade grounds. They would have Air Force nurse and guards trot over to the cadet, put them on a stretcher, and carry them off the field. Then you could see groups of 5 or so here and there on the other side of the field recouperating while nurses looked after them.
Same at the Citadel. Hot humid Charleston weather and wool uniforms, they dropped like flies on Fri afternoon during Parade.
They would be taken to an area under the trees to revive.
At least Colorado Springs summers are blessedly cool & dry - compared to out east.
Learning the art of the catnap may be the most important skill a soldier can have.
Learning the art of the catnap may be the most important skill a soldier can have.
Thanks for the response guys. I was proud of noticing that little detail - LOL.
Let me just say this. My respect and admiration for these young men and their service and their demeanor is such that I beleive it must have an almost mystical effect to better anyone honored to spend a little time with them. I noticed a story of one of the troops who shook the president’s hand and told him it was an honor to serve with him. Zero just nodded and moved on I would imagine taken back by the idea of it. After a second Zero.00000000001 backed up and said to the cadet, “It’s an honor to serve with YOU.”
I am not taken by this shyster, huckster, phony thief but I have no doubts that these fine cadets made him a little bit better of a man, if only for a day before he grinds it out of his own soul.
Corny as it sounds and
“..learned a ‘little’ something.”
I doubt it; but , I will say this: the 0 is the perpetual MBA/Law student, his development is arrested at that stage. That is what we have as President, the perpetual college student. We can tell that from his speeches, etc. They are nothing but words chock full of what he heard at Harvard, classroom buzz words such as the overused “unprecedented”, etc. Spiro Agnew had this guy nailed to a T.
God help us all.
Make that perpetual Marxist college student.
I graduated USMA in 2002. Currently in Iraq. I was floored by Matthew’s “Enemy Camp” comment. I was fortunate enough to attend the Academy under GWB and met him at Graduation. We are told before major speeches the Rules of Engagement and normally we remain rigid and silent...and sleepy of course.
I was a prior service cadet like the Soldier Pictured but came from Aviation so instead of a CIB I had a crew badge. It definitely gave me a different perspective of the Academy coming from the Enlisted Ranks.
As a company commander I encourage my troops to seek higher education, be it the Academy, Green to Gold, or just seek their degree. It is a challenge at times keeping good Soldiers in the ranks due to our high OPTEMPO and deployment cycle.
Thank you all for your support, I don’t get the invective from you all that I see from the Liberal Rags.
jbs
From a USMC Vietnam Vet, I am honored that you are aboard and submitted your comments. Please know that you(all of you over there)have my(our)undiluted support regardless of this CIC you currently have. I do not want to happen to you folks what happened to us who served in RVN; however, the current political leadership and the leadership that we had from ‘93 until ‘01 are the same people(and remnants thereof)that have created most of the problems we have had, both at home and internationally. They are nothing but 1960’s Marxists trash and the country would be much better off without them.
As for any comments you receive from this site, the day that you receive inhospitable comments will most likely be the day I sign off.
The cadet in front of the reader has a pained expression on his face.
Thank you for your service and commentary.
Our Nephew, a Marine, has just returned from his first tour in Afghanistan.
We are thrilled he is home, even for a short while, and it brings pause for those who have come home to their Families for the last time after giving the ultimate sacrifice.
God Bless all our Military Men and Women, and God Bless our wonderful Country.
Unlike our current CIC, I know to my bones that The United States of America is and will always be the greatest hope of Mankind. The Men and Women who serve make that possible.
Gas bubble...
Proves what I knkew all along...
Every single one of them caught on camera reading these types of books were making a statement...
Theyh WANT to kill terrorists...They do not want to arrest, detain, or coddle these frappin’ asshats and send them to be put ontrial like they are citizens of this country...
Yet, they will be sent to the grinder to be nation builders in an area where they don’t understand the concept, much less want to be a nation...
So the more the feckless leadership in our goverment want to fart around and let these good kids die for...yep...pretty much nothing...That’s playing right into the liberal way of fighting a war, that is basically an open ended obligation that both our sides (terrorists/enemy and the commanders in theater)...But is something government will never understand listen to, or engage...
Yep, lets stop taking the fight to them in 2011, they’ll (enemy/terrorists) probably go ahead and hang it up too.../sarc
He might have been a very good soldier however because of training and leadership skills gained as a scout.
They had a good teacher
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