I'm sitting at the hotel this morning rested and very happy that I didn't have to sleep at the company last night. I relaxed the entire time that I was here, and my friends had a wild night--strictly confidential. lol

Checkin' out what's up on dannychoo.com and then will step out to grab brunch. This is my last weekend in Virginia and I'm enjoying it. Next weekend I have my first drill weekend after I will have graduated next week. Can't wait!

Yesterday afternoon I shot a video for the second episode of Go David Strong and it took me an hour and a half because of my brain hiccups, loud vehicles passing by and my family interrupting.

I ended doing 106 takes total, just so that I could get at least four good takes of me saying The Soldier's Creed without any cuts. I only got three uninterrupted takes of the entire recitation before I lost good daylight from outside.

Now I am sorting out the good takes from the undesirable one's in Final Cut at the moment. Then once I have a good edit, I'll export it to After Affects to fix some things, color and what not. I'll bring it back into my Final Cut project and add final edits, such as titles, credits, music and sounds.

I'm sharing so that you have an inside peek at my editing process with episodes. I don't, however, do all this for vlogs. I just cut out as many "ums" and awkward pauses without compromising the message. I add titles and then I'm done.

All I can say is wowza! This episode will take a while.

So I was supposed to have a meetup with some other guys and my recruiter for Future Soldier Training (FTS) but he texted me and said that we couldn't meet. So that left me to have to motivate myself to get up and take care of what I know still needs to be done on my own.

I have to boost myself--have that intrinsic motivation to get my butt in gear. My voice teacher used to put it this way, he'd say, "Apply the board of knowledge to the seat of education.". In other words, get my butt moving!!!! Waiting on a teacher to get me going isn't really wise.

So yesterday I didn't go run like I intended even though he canceled our meetup and to make up for it my friend Taneshina and I went for a run this morning. FYI: Taneshina is a west point cadet in incredible shape, with great strength--enough to put me to shame. Like she's pumped!! LOL!

The bottom line is I will be pushing myself to exceed the minimum standards of the initial PT assessment during the first week of BCT.

I'll get to the title of this post in a minute--I wanna take the long route. :)

Today we had a future soldier gathering of all current recruits awaiting shipping out to BCT from various select cities in our county. We met up at the beach with blue skies and a beautiful ocean. It was awesome and VERY exciting. The only downer is I couldn't participate fully because I over exerted myself and thereby over worked my left calf muscle. Been limping a bit since. It's so not serious, but it had me out of commission for the last two days plus today. At any rate, we all got into formation, stretched, exercised and then began an alleged 1 mile run (was actually around 3 miles). I didn't run, obviously. So while the group was gone us beat and hurt folk chilled and talked army stuff, both recruits and sergeants alike. Afterward, there was food, volleyball and basketball games. I left early but during the time I was there I really absorbed the experience.

The time that I spent "networking", I guess is how I can put it, I found to be the most beneficial aspect of the event. Not only was it cathartic in terms of settling nervousness of not knowing each other, but also boosted confidence in what we are all there for, and this is why I'm loving my army experience thus far.

Here is where the title comes in. A large majority of the recruits that I've met from my station and then from other stations are younger than me. I'm 27, soon to be 28 in April. The others are like in or just out of high school. And some graduated a while back are in their late teens to early twenties. On the other end of the spectrum I think there were maybe three guys that I counted on one hand that appear to be in their 30s--everyone else is under 30, judging by appearance. Now I bring up age, because I've been getting a lot of comical ice-breaking reactions from the younger recruits because of my young look. I appear to be in school. Some thought I was a high school senior, and some thought I was in college, therefore my early twenties. So today, while me and other recruits from our station were talking, one guy asked me my rank. I said, Specialist. There was an awkward silence and they then another who already met me a month ago added, "Yeah, I know him. He's the specialist guy". And all I can think is, is this a bad thing or a good thing? lol So today I've been dubbed by the folk 7 to 9 years younger than me as "The Specialist Guy".

So one of the common questions I've been getting lately are inquiries about my age and/or rank. Generally, I have been led to understand that my speech and smile, specifically give my age away. And while all this isn't new to me, I still find the reactions very amusing to say the least.

Oh while I'm at it I'll share with you that I took my first trip to MEPS yesterday evening to take the ASVAB for the first time.  There was some waiting of roughly 30 minutes and then I went in, registered or what not and took the exam.

It wasn't bad.  I was nervous at first because the last time I took an exam similar to it was the CLAST test in college, and sucked at the math portion.  But alas, I rocked the ASVAB.  I earned a 92 AFQT percentile score and my GT score was 126.  I'm really happy about it,but it's not over yet. 

My recruiter still has to get back to me about scheduling my second trip to get physically qualified.  In all honesty, I am VERY nervous about this because from what I've heard and read, the docs there practically LOOK for stuff to disqualify you.  So this alleged fact plus my laziness in going to get regular check-ups with my own doctor in say, a decade has me nervous.  I don't know of any non-symptomatic conditions I might have that can disqualify me.  I say that because to my knowledge I don't think I have any serious conditions, outside of really needing to be more physically active.  I live a somewhat sedentary lifestyle.  BUT THIS WILL CHANGE, ARMY OR NO ARMY!  I am getting older and I don't want to feel like i'm 37 instead of 27 (my actual age). 

I am praying to God, no really, I am PRAYING that I qualify and pass this physical next week!  My cousin Ashley at West Point is really proud that I've come this far.   Love her! 

This morning I woke up to my mom having an arsenal of questions that ultimately lead up to the quintessential question all sons and daughters are asked when deciding to join the armed forces, "Why do you want to join the military?"  Mom's question is fine and natural, but poorly timed--or maybe not because it got me thinking more.  To double-check my motives and reasons.  

I'll fast-forward and tell you now that I didn't give an answer because she cornered me before I was heading out the door for work and it would not be fair to her nor myself to just blurt out something.  I know my reasons, but something screamed, "This is not the time for this type of conversation."  And so I told my mom that when I get home this afternoon that we will talk about it, and she said ok.  But as I was preparing to step outside the house she stopped me and said, "I'm 59 years old and Jonathan (my brother) will have no one...no one in this world," as she started sobbing.  I think understand what my mother feels, but I immediately caught onto the underlying context--the worst case scenario:  She'll pass away, I'll get called up and die in a war, and my brother will be alone.  Again, I understand my mom's feelings, but I couldn't imagine for the life of me how I was supposed to respond to that with ten minutes before I have to literally be at work, not just on the way. When I think about it, I should have hugged my mom and told her again that we'll talk more about it this afternoon.  But I said stood there for all of ten seconds pondering what I should say, but I continued on.

A little backstory...

I do not want to share the details of my moms exact words and feelings about people dying for our country, but I'll just say that they aren't positive due to heated, long-lasting encounters with people she dislikes (and it left serious emotional scars; A BIG GRUDGE).  So the idea of one of her children joining the army to potentially die for a country that includes the continued happiness of the people she dislikes, and I'll leave nameless, it is just...out of this world for her.  And sadly, I honestly have no clue how to react to that.  Frankly, I'd probably side-step this aspect of her reason for asking me why I want to join the army.  In fact, it appears to be a distraction from the heart of the matter.  And as I realized that she asked me, "What do I need to fight for?!"  Immediately my thinking was I cannot adopt the same reason for not joining the army as her.  And when asked why I want to join, I can't think of any strong personal reasons for not joining--even in the face of being deployed "over there" from reserve status (of course, I'd be afraid, but I've accepted that reality because it's the military I'm joining, not Disney).  Finally she said to me, "In the time we live in, there will always be war."  *silence*

I know the risks and I ponder it a lot, even during the past when joining hadn't even crossed my mind.  I wondered, "What would it be like?"  So let me answer her question here, and this should help me better verbalize my reasons to my mom later today.

 

Why I want to joint the military (Army Reserve)

I want to serve my country.   No, our country isn't perfect.  It has many flaws, many that aren't worth defending one bit, but sooooo much more that is worth fighting for and maintaining--namely our future (the children), our history and the affect that our ideologies have had on the world (equality and freedom).  When I hear a negative remark about America, I ponder both sides of the argument to see if the critique is justified.  If it is justified, then I would suggest to that person that he or she not only talk about it, act on it, execute an effective approach to bring about awareness, and get it into the political arena within his or her home state so that change can begin to happen.  It's just that most people would rather complain, yell, shout, act out and cause a scene or hide, rather than do the dirty work that it takes to bring a matter to attention.  And this is probably the case because the process isn't a quick fix.  It's slow, may cost something (time and or money), and further personal sacrifice on some level outside of time and money.  Our Martin Luther Kings Jr.s, Rosa Parks', Ghandi's etc are fewer and far between.  Which takes me to my next point.

So I want to give, I want to serve, and meanwhile advance and improve myself as I do.  I've pondered ways to do it, and this is the choice I've made, though rigorous schedules, rules, and bodily strain are a VERY big of military life.  Furthermore, I expect to be FULLY surprised even after all I've read and have been told about the basic training and the army, and thereafter as well.  Nothing can fully prepare me, for what's to come, but I want to do it.  (To clarify however, I'm not at all interested in being on of those "HOOAH!!," jump out of planes, front line, shoot'em up, kill'em dead, fighter types.  If I wanted that I'd be thinking of an MOS (job) in Infrantry, and THEN I'd really understand where my mom is coming from. LOL  ...but that's not the case.)

Finally, I want to get a good career experience from joining the military, but I'll blog about this in detail another day though.

I'll talk to my mom this afternoon like I said. ...And I get it.  My mom is really asking, why does it have to be me?  Why do I need to join?  Let the other parents kids go to war. I'm her firstborn son of two sons.  I get it.  But again, what am I to do with myself, my career, my life?  Stand still?

 I'm 27 years old and I feel stifled.  If I thought my life and present career were satisfying, I wouldn't be bothing with the military, but I want more.  A bigger challenge.