These Are My People

Hi y'all.

Hope y'all are having a good week. Did y'all know that I'm in North Carolina? Should I say y'all a few more times just to prove it? Here, how 'bout this, made by a couple of the kids in my group :D

So basically it's finally Spring Break, and we're on tour with Under Construction, the Christian A Cappella group I sing with. We've only been here a couple days, so I don't have a ton to tell yet, but shall we just say that I looooove the South?

Rocking chairs on back porches. macaroni and cheese, the accents, baked beans, all the churches, fried catfish, country music, warmer weather, pie, and friendly friendly people. It couldn't get better.

Take today after our second gig for example. We finished around lunch time, so we went to a nearby "Southern Cafeteria" for lunch. It felt like going out for ice cream in Utah after Priesthood session! Lines out the door, everyone wearing Sunday clothes, talking with total strangers, I guess this happens every Sunday there. The only family I saw not wearing Sunday best was wearing camo instead. It made me very happy. It's going to be a pleasure singing for these people for the next week.

The squad, enjoying our first Southern sunset

Ethan, our group's logistics manager, with his incredibly kind parents who are lavishing us in Southern hospitality

Loved the sign

Found sitting by the sink :D

Family portrait of Ethan's neighbors who are letting us use their house that they just moved out of

Straight outta a country song :)

We're givin' this life everything we got and then some
It ain't always pretty, but it's real
It's the way we were made, wouldn't have it any other way
These are my people

Air Power!

Detachment 365 on a Wilderness Survival Leadership Lab. This was the day I contracted.

Today I want to address a huge aspect of my life that I've only briefly mentioned so far.
Being an Air Force ROTC cadet at Harvard is not normal. In fact, out of my class of roughly 1700 freshman, 4 of us do AFROTC. Here we are at this week's joint Military Ball.

From left to right: Dom, Nadine, Christie, and yours truly

ROTC across all the military branches is fairly small at Harvard. So the local Navy, Army/Marine, and Air Force detachments are all based at MIT. Once a year we all dress up, get together for a fancy dinner, toasts, and a guest speaker. This happened Friday night.

Other than occasional bigger events like that, our weekly schedule involves two early morning PT sessions, an Air Force Heritage class taught by an current officer, and a hands-on leadership lab run by the 3rd and 4th year cadets. This week that was handgun training at MIT's pistol range. In the past we've done everything from marching drills to guest speakers, from career fairs to airsoft in the basement. Every week there is a new set of military knowledge to have rote memorized, and new chances to practice teamwork and leadership in action. I love it. It honestly often feels a lot like the "initiatives" from adventure racing. 

But enough about the program itself, here are my thoughts on the whole thing. 

1. It's a win-win in so many ways. They help me with school, AND I get a guaranteed job when I finish. Going to the schools we do makes our detachment special within the national ROTC organization, AND doing ROTC makes us special within our respective schools. (This has been evident to me when applying to things like the astronomy club within the school, and for scholarships and summer things from ROTC. I mean, I'm going to Jump School!!!) I get a legitimate excuse to live the "early to bed early to rise" life-style I like, AND stay fit. I get whole new group of down-to-earth, good kids as friends, AND an excuse to visit MIT and get off campus every week (that's a bigger deal within the "Harvard Bubble" than you might guess)
2. It's funny how similar to a mission it is in a lot of ways. So much of it is run by the older cadets, not the adult officers. Getting stared at for the uniforms. The emphasis on obedience. The comradery. Oh and the acronyms and jargon. I've been at it for 6 months and still get lots in POC's, OPORD's, COB's, ABU's, etc. Even the emphasis on "recruiting and retention" haha
3. I'd say my detachment on average is more "conservative" than our ward. Maybe that's just because of the schools and neighborhoods my ward draws from, but it's something I wasn't expecting
4. Two of my best friends here do it with me. Kevin, who I had the privilege of baptizing last semester, and Christie, with whom I also did Harvard's preorientation backpacking trip, and now do all my math problem sets

   

I could go on, but it's past my bedtime, so that'll have to do for now. The one thing I didn't put on the list, because it felt to big to go alongside all those other things, is that I'm proud to be a part of ROTC because I grateful to be an American. I get these moments when we all snap to attention for the national anthem or a visiting general tells stories of unsung heroes, or when I squared my arm and swore to support and defend, "so help me God". Moments where I'm just grateful for a higher cause to my education, grateful to represent a nation full of so many good people, and grateful for the chance I'm being given to make a difference.

 

"Be the best that I can be,

'cause freedom don't come free."