My life at USAFA really really began while I was a sophomore in high school. That's when I found out about the U.S. Air Force Academy. It sounded like a tremendous opportunity, and I'd been interested in the military since I visited Ft. Knox with my grandfather. So I applied. The application process is very involved and time consuming, but I got in, and it was worth it.

I in-processed with the class of 2000 on 27 June 1996 and went through Basic Cadet Training (BCT) as a member of Big Bad Barbarians squadron, B flight. (1st BCT we were Butchers, 2nd Bone-crushers.) It was hard work, but I vowed I would complete it and become part of the Cadet Wing. I'll never forget the lessons and advice from Cadets Savage, Burdette, Orlowsky, Zerba, James, Santiago, Meier, Baumgartner, Liebenow, Sansom, and Jacobs. They pushed us to our limits, and enstilled a since of pride and respect for the military family we were about to join. And on 6 Aug 96, I went from Basic Cadet to Cadet Fourth-Class. It was quite exhilarating, but I knew I had a tough year up ahead...

And it was a pretty tough year. As four-degrees, we have a lot of stuff to do: know all kinds of knowledge (military, names, drinks at meals, current events,etc), run the terrazzo strips, sound-off at all times, greet the upperclassmen (RUTHLESS ROADRUNNERS!), the list goes on. And I made it even harder on myself by going out for the Sabre Drill Team--the most hard-core team at the Academy. The team holds higher standards in all areas, and we get to play with sharp objects. The team is really close, too. Each of my teammates is like a brother to me. Be sure to check out the team homepage. (The link is below.)

I made it through my SMACK year, though. Summer '97 I underwent Combat Survival Training (CST) and the soaring program. I'd tell you some of the stuff we did in CST, but then, I'd have to kill you. Soaring was fun, but it was cut short when a T-3 crashed and a cadet and his instructor pilot were killed - most unfortunate. And this was the day before the class of 2001 arrived...

This time I was the one putting the fourth class through the training, though a lot of restrictions have been put on this activity, so they are not as hard as we of 2000 are. But most of them made it through that tough first year...but the three-degree year isn't much better: the academics are harder, nobody above you is telling you what to do, so you have to be more responsible, you have to sit CQ, train SMACKS, and are stuck here on the weekends unless someone will lend you their car. This year was my worst ever! It was partly my fault for declaring physics as my major. I remedied that before it was too late by changing to behavioral sciences/human factors during the 2nd semester. But the most important thing is it's over -- and everything ended up OK. (Maybe even better OK since this is the semester are started going out with Dave!)

Then, another summer. The summer between sophomore and junior years is typically pretty cool. Every cadet gets the opportunity to travel to an operational Air Force base for three weeks and see how things work in the "real Air Force." Most get leadership credit by working either BCT or CST for three weeks. I chose a program called AETC. A select few go TDY to Lackland AFB to see how Basic Military Training (BMT) is run. This is the training undergone by the enlisted corp -- the "gateway" of the Air Force as it is called. It's a six week program because it combines Ops Air Force and leadership. I worked in the 323 TRS with wonderful instructors like SrA Rick Cusack and TSgt Brown. It was a great experience. (I was coming off of a month of leave w/ a two week trip to Hawaii in there, so it was hard to get back to work, but after a week, I was ready to rip!)

Another important thing happens at the end of a third-class cadet's second semester. Besides being promoted to a second-class cadet, we switch to a new squadron. So, I moved from CS-32 (Ruthless Roadrunners) to CS-13 (Fightin' Bulldawgs). My first job in this squadron is the Support NCO...not fun, but it could have been worse. I also worked Operations Center as an Ops Controller. I guess I did so well on this, that I was asked to replace the Ops Center Training NCO when he was released from this job! So then my primary job was Ops Center, but I got to do extra stuff for it - yay! I also joined the SCUBA Club and got my open-water, advanced, and rescue diving certifications during this year - which was pretty cool. This year was tough in the sense that all my classes at the end had some major project, paper, lab, etc. due practically the same time. But I managed to survive and become a firstie! I wore my boards for the first time at 99's graduation -- I did an arch for the CinC with the Sabre Drill Team. Then, I went home for 3 weeks -- well kinda.

Dave came up and visited me one weekend (he was on summer research at Randolph AFB), then I went down to see him the next. Then I just hung out for another week. Drove back up to the Academy (oh, yeah -- I got a car over Christmas break) and started working as the vice-chief of Command Center. That went pretty well. After three weeks of this, I was an element leader for '03's 2nd BCT. Long days, not much sleep, a bit of down time where NOTHING is going on...I was very glad when this program was done...

Then I was the Stan/Eval Officer for my squadron. For those of you who do not know what stan/eval (standardization/evaluation) does, I was supposed to make sure the squadron is following regulations, particularly in the areas of rooms, uniforms, and marching. It was an OK job, but they added a new inspection that we had to get ready for...yay for me. My LAST semester at this place: Element Leader. Basically, the "lowest" job in the wing, but not too bad. I just had to make sure the members of my element are present when they should be, and I got to be the first to sign requests/punishments for my subordinates. Be aware that the whole firstie year I was concurrently serving as a Senior Controller for the base Command Center. Basically, I served as the ranking cadet on a team of 5, and execute command and control operations during a 12-hour shift every 2 weeks. Cool stuff, huh?