College Student, 18A hopeful

AverageGuy

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Joined
Jan 24, 2019
Messages
7
Location
Vermont, Boston, SoCal
Hey everybody, whoever's reading this.

I am a senior in college on the East Coast, planning to move to Boston after I graduate. I live in Vermont, go to school in Connecticut. None of my family has ever served except for my grandfather who was drafted but never went to combat.

Last summer I worked in Los Angeles at the Performance Science Institute at USC, interested in sports medicine. One of the bonuses about the job was the cool people we met, talked to, assessed, etc. Among those, and foremost to me among those, were at the Reconnaissance Training Company at Camp Pendleton. We were assigned there to monitor the cardiac and psychological activity of guys going through BRPC (Basic Recon. Primer Course) and BRC (Basic Recon. Course) -- we put Apple watches on trainees (who volunteered) during their whole days and gave them 2-min surveys every night as a measure of their psychological progression during the brutal weeks of training.

The science was really cool, but with projects like that, you need a lot of data before you can say anything conclusive. So while I'm here in CT, that project is still in its data-gathering phase and hopefully will be for some time.

While I was there (I spent a couple nights in the barracks as well), I caught the bug. I caught the bug that was the infectious mentality of the respected guys there. Capability combined with humility and brotherhood and just sincere niceness and a willingness to help out. We, as civilian scientists, were outsiders. But we were welcomed and treated amazingly well.

After a couple of times there, I started asking questions (secretly, away from earshot of my boss): "How do you become a SARC?" I asked one SARC who was also a member of the cadre. He laid it out for me. I started doing research, quietly, into options ... I don't know why, I just did.

Since then, I've told a couple people about my plans to join the military, and hopefully a SOF community. Being a senior in college, and having a couple friends as Officers in the Army, I have narrowed down what I want at this point.

Right now I plan to become an Officer going through Army OCS and doing my best to get to a Ranger Battalion and eventually Special Forces as an 18A. Special Forces because of my interest in language, working in small teams, and cultural interaction. No other branch for me has that. I also like to blow shit up and shoot. So I don't wanna be in Intel or at the helm of a ship.

I'm on the track team at my college as a sprinter, and the thing I know I have to work on the most is cardio and long-distance training.

If anyone on the East Coast (near Boston, VT, etc.) has anything to share, I'd love to hear it.
 
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