My experience at TACSTC

[Dr_LASR]

First and foremost, I hope this lives up to your standards JerzeyLegend. And I hope we can be on better terms now.

If I brag a bit, please don't be a jerk and point it out. It's a happy moment for me

So from July 9th to July 20th I was at Trenton Air Cadet Summer Training Centre (TACSTC).
It's a super-duper-awesome place. Let me explain to you my schedule.
I wake up at 6:00 to captains and majors in the military yelling at me to wake up, and that stupid trumpet song blaring right beside my head at full volume,
because the PA system was right beside my head. I think I have hearing loss now. I had 10 minutes to make my bed perfectly, get in my uniform complete with
my amazing shiny boots, tucked in shirt, and incredibly tight belt. That same 10 minutes to brush my teeth, shave, and do everything else I need to do for the day.
We then get to form up (Yay) on the parada square in the freezing cold, standing at ease. (Hands behind back, feet apart, eyes front, not even a single twitch)
And having to ask the annoying drill commander (Which I should have gotten, but the other guy did because he was buff, and could use his diaphram even though my
voice is twice as loud) to scratch whenever I have the need to. After that very fun moment we get to march two kilometers to the mess hall, where we wait beside
porta-potties that haven't been cleaned once... Then we eat crappy food, and march all the way back!

I know that sounds super depressing, and I may have emphasized a bit But that's the ONLY bad parts about this place. The rest is awesome. There are 13 "Flights."
Which are a group of Course Cadets (CC, the kids like me) With 2 Staff Cadets (SC, people that run the place, but are cadets back at home) and an Officer Cadet (OC.)
We got to do an Olypmic-type competition, where my flight was Madagascar. (Our theme song was polka-dot-afro.) Unfortuantly we didn't win. We came in 3rd
There was band class, where we got to try clarinets, flutes, drums and what-not. I got to show off my amazing bagpipe skills to everyone We got to do Range
(Shooting air rifles) at targets 10m away. We had to shoot 5 bullets in a group, 2 times in a row on the same sheet. I was the best in our flight, and was the
only one to qualify for a marksman badge, despite it being my first time EVER shooting. I managed to get one group off bullets in a 3.0 cm radius, and the other
in a 2.9cm radius.
We got to do drill, which many people dislike, but I seem to enjoy. It what
You see the military people do at ceremonies and what not, for example, the marching, turning on the spot, standing at attention, etc... Oh, and our entire flight
had to participate in a drill competition, which was testing our drill against other flights. I was the right marker, the spot that is easily the most noticed.
I got there because I'm the best (Sorry if I'm bragging) Buut.... Unfortuantly.... We won! We got a cool peice of paper that says so!
We also got to do a survival day. We got taught Bugs, Fire's, Structures (Which I had to miss ) and knots,
where the guy teaching us was super awesome. I loved the knots particularily, because I corrected the guy, AND showed him a new knot (Sailor's knot. Don't know
how he didn't know what it was...) We had to eat Meal Ready-to-Eat's (MRE's) Which are vile things. They stay in packages for up to 100 years. Everything is in
a weird, saucy form. Hashbrown looked more like peices the white in a boiled egg, and long shreds of brown construction paper. But the day did help ALOT for my
hopefully future job. We did a bunch of other stuff too, but I forget it I got a pretty sick, custom-made dogtag though that said ''Cpl Darryl (Last name) 99 lynx squadron''
We also won one more award at awards night. We were VERY proud of it Our flight got TOP FLIGHT.
To get that, you must exemplify in all aspects of air cadets. In our drill, social skills, discipline, and everything that makes the perfect soldier.
And finally, but defiantly not least, our
graduation parade. I was also right marker for this. It went absolutely flawlessly. We had some people that were on exchange from turkey, france, hungary, britain,
japan, and last but not least, australia. (High five to all the aussies out there). My absolute favourite moment of the graduation parade was when the
Commanding Officer (CO) of ALL of Trenton (He has four thick gold bars for his rank. The captains in the military only have 2 thick gold bars. Photo of ranking
system: http://www.forces.ca/Content/Ranks/rank_officer_en.jpg) What he did, was compliment on how shiny my boots were. This may not seem like much to you guys, but that means
EVERYTHING to a cadet. The shinier your boots, generally the higher of a rank you are. The shinier your boots, the more pride you take in Air Cadets, yourself,
and your country. Someone with very shiny boots often gets more opportunites than someone without. (Here's a photo of how shiny my boots were (ot mine): http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs18/f/2007/177/2/3/cadet_boots_by_Canadiandrawer.jpg)
I said my appropriate thank you's, and answered all his questions, then had the worst part of parade right after that... Let me explain why it was horrible.
I had to stand at attention. I'll go from the ground up, to teach you guys on how to stand properly. In order to stand at attention properly, your heels are
touching, and approxamitely 30 degrees apart. Your knees are locked, and can NOT move. Your hand are balled into a fist, with your thumb sticking straight
out, toward the halfway point between your first and second knuckle, with you thumbs directly along the seims of your pants. Your shoulders are squared,
achieved by pushing your shoulders forward, up, back, and down, so your basically pushing you "Man pecks" out. Your eyes are looking straight to the front,
and NEVER veering off to look at something interesting. You facial expression is emotionless, never faltering. I also forgot to mention that EVERY SINGLE
muscle in your body is clenched, including your calfs, biceps, and yes, your butt too. (Picture of someone standing at attention perfectly. Very hard to
do: http://www.mccc.edu/policeacademy/images/Standing at attention.jpg) It's not very fun... We had to do that while the four people walking had to inspect each line
of people out of 3 very carefully, spending about 10 seconds on each person. There were 3 lines, each with about 100 cadets each. I was around the 15th cadet
to get inspected, so I had to wait for about... 285 people to get inspected. Thats 2850 seconds, thats 47 and a half minutes. Not fun at all. Since I was in
the front, every single little movement I did was instantly noticed. To make it worse, the place had a bad wasp infiltration, so there was alot of wasps
around. Luckily, I wasn't the kid who cried very hard because he got stung on neck by one...

This basically concludes my super long post about my experiences at TACSTC It thorougly enjoyed it, and can't WAIT to go to Basic Survival next year, and hopefully
Survival Instructor after that, where I get to survive 4 days in the wild by myself. Unfortuantly, Royal Canadian Air Cadets in a Canadian specific program, and
I believe there is no equivilant in america. It's a COMPLETELy free program, and they supply you with not that bad clothes. The uniform they issue you is about
600 dollars approximitely. They have Long-Sleeves, T-Shirts, Shorts, Shoes, Pants, you name it. The long sleeves are pretty sick. I have 3 of them myself. The
T-Shirts are 3 colours. Dark blue, Light blue, and Grey, I personally LOVE the dark blue shirts. I and other people think I look sexy in them They give you
unlimited amounts of these clothing for you. If you wanted, you could just wear these clothes all day. There's only 1 thing you pay for. Sometimes, you don't even
have to pay for it. The year-end trip. It is rather reasonable, though, since we went to Washington, DC. Not exactly cheap if your taking Coach buses... But, they
give out raffle tickets for cadets to sell. I have a secret spot, and I can sell a book of 50, 2.50 cents each, in about 10 minutes. Sell 10 of them, and they give
you a guarenteed spot on the trip, absolutely free. They award 7 medals, which I believe you can wear on a military uniform. They look bad-ass. The only bad
thing I'd say, is that you have to iron your clothes, and polish your boots. If there's a big event coming up, I'll spend sometimes up to 12 hours doing my uniform.
Making sure that my creases are razor sharp. For graduation parade at TACSTC, I spent 3 HOURS on my boots. They were shinier than a freaking mirror. I highly
encourage anybody that is Canadian, a teenager, and bored to join this amazing program. I actually met my now GF of 3 months, 9 days here. It completely changed
my life... Very much for the better.

I actually forgot to mention 3 things. One, is that there are also Army Cadets, Navy League, and Sea Cadets. The second thing is the potatoes they served...
There was something they put in the potatoes, I dont know what there called, but diminished a guys sex drive. Trust me... The stuff works. There were some
pretty fine looking girls there. The thing about the potatoes, however, is that they didn't see that it had a reverse effect on the females. Instead of not
affecting them at all like they wanted, it actually severely INCREASED a girls sex drive. Many of my friends have lost a certain "Thing" at this camp due to
those potatoes. There like a freaking god to most guys. The last thing is that camp is better than it sounds. It doesn't cost a dime. They actually PAY you
60$ a week to go to there. Theres 2, 3, 4, and 6 week coursed. Earning, respectively, 120$, 180$, 240$, and 360$. The staff, however, get paid even more. All the
SC get paid way more then CC. They come a week before for testing, to earn there ranks. Sargeants earn 67$ a day. They get paid for 6 weeks attendance. Flight
Sargeants get paid 79$ a day. I don't know how much the Warrant Officer 1st and 2nd class get paid, they there job is INCREDIBLY hard. There's a rumour going around
on base and the internet that they get paid around 5-10 thousand dollars. The SC get paid for 6 weeks, in respective order, 2,814$... 3,318$... and aprox,
5,000 - 10,000.

Thanks to anyone and everybody that actually read my Uber long post I hope this is good enough for JerzeyLegends standards.

 

[Creeper]

I'll read /all/ of it if you fix those indentions. Interesting stuff, though.

 

[Dr_LASR]

@Creeper I can't find how to edit it.

 

[Beaubonic]

lol I love that everyone is practically afraid of Jerzey and his "criticism".
No offense, I can't read this right now.. maybe later when I can focus better. I did, however read about those potatoes... GlaDOS' doing, I suppose...

 

[Audi]

That was really good, and I'm pleased for you.
However, I kept searching the whole thing for 4chan-style letter sentence shit (like the thing I pulled).
Indentation was weird.
But whatever, cool story - I mean that sincerely.

 

[Dr_LASR]

Sorry for indendation problems. I wrote this on notepad...

 

[JerzeyLegend]

Great story Downed. Glad you had fun.

Hope you helped a girl lose her "thing" while you were there.

I was once in a cadet corp. Not as hardcore as yours, but I had fun none the less. I finished a Staff Sergeant.

 

[Casey]

Well, I have a lot to say. However, I won't be a douche about anything, if you want my input, catch me on mumble. I will say three things however. First off, NEVER lock your knees or tense your muscles when at the position of attention. We are told that throughout our entire military career. You should only tense your muscles momentarily to get into position, after that, you have to relax them to a degree, or you will get tired. The reason for this, and also NOT to lock your knees is because around the 2 hour mark of standing at attention, people start passing out. If you lock your knees, blood pools in your legs. If you are only standing at attention for an hour, thats all fine and dandy, but after that you have to learn how to relax and keep your knees loose while standing straight and still. Secondly, they don't actually put anything in your food to limit your sex drive, as is rumored. In actuality, the amount of stress that is experienced from the type of environment you are in is actually what does it, and the rumor is spread to keep people wondering and unsure of how far the military actually goes. In the end, it is all a mind game to keep you on your toes. Thirdly, and last, the song played at the beginning of the day is reveille, and I hate it with a passion.

Sorry about the long reply, but there are a lot of things that never seem to pass in programs like this (The American program is called ROTC and survival school is called SERE training, and it is much more intense, again, catch me in mumble.)

I am glad you had a good time! If you ever need advice, feel free to ask, as I am approaching my 6th year in the United States Air Force.

 

[konflakes]

I was having a headache before I started reading this, and by the time I got through the 2nd chunk/paragraph, I almost passed out. Sorry but it kind of hurts my eyes right now, I might read it when my head doesn't feel like it has rhinos having rough sex in it.

 

[Dr_LASR]

@Casey Thanks for the reply I prefer longer comments I'll take that into consideration once the next year starts up I'm hoping to be a WO1 when I'm older.

 

[zac]

nice blog