Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

My feet are exhausted from walking the Louvre and Invalides museums. What an experience it was, though! The Louvre isn’t famous without reason. Attracting what seems like hundreds of thousands of people a day, it features 35,000 art peices and historical objects. The museum itself is a piece of history, as artists of the old world used to visit and do their work on the building. The vast rooms of the museum were adorned with beautiful paintings, engraving, and decorations.

Being a person uninterested in paintings, the Louvre still proved to be a fascinating place for me. The Greco-Roman busts and statues were amazing. The Napoleonic rooms were mind-blowing. The grandiosity of the living quarters of the French royals back then!

For me, the most amazing thing was to imagine all those works being created by people centuries and millenia ago. And the museum was such a vortex, sucking me in. I was so enthralled that I easily spent four hours wandering the halls. At one point, I was so sleepy that I took a nap in a room of ancient Roman antiques.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but think that Louvre would be better served as a paintball arena or that the Mona Lisa was a copy. Or that the statues were alive and had to hold their poses all day, and would complain at night to one another about us tourists. I even envisioned a Family Guy tangent featuring the Mona Lisa.

After the Louvre, I walked to the Invalides military museum. It features artillery from the early modern era to WWII, small firearms, uniforms, propaganda pieces, pictures, and other military devices of the modern warfare era. Seeing military uniforms with medals and ribbons on them made me both sad and proud. I realized that I am joining a tradiion of humankind that has transcended thousands of years: warfare. And I am just another pawn (or maybe rook) that will come after literally billions of warriors long past.

Invalides also housed WWI and WWII small arms, like MP40s and 19th century French rifles. And asection of the museum was dedicated to Napoleon’s tomb. Grandious in life, Napoleon maintains an aura of command in his huge tomb under a golden dome. It was a fitting place of burial for one of the greatest makers of war in all of modern warfare.

I find it difficult to ingest the history rooted in this city and country.

I feel like Forrest Gump. I’ve been sitting at a bus stop in Dover, Delaware, trying to get to the Air Force Base for over two hours. Several busses have come and gone, along with their passengers. On the bench I’ve been sitting at, people have come and gone as well. Young, old, black, white, big and small alike.

If today’s character for me is Forrest Gump, yesterday’s was The Terminal. I was in the airport with just a suitcase and bad, no flight anywhere or place to stay, and about to sleep in the airport terminal. Luckily, as Jason Bourne said in the Bourne Supremacy book, Money is the passport to manueverability. With that, I decided not to do The Terminal, and not be like the Army kid who had been sleeping in the airport since Sunday.

At the bus stop, I’ve been talking to an old man who is trying to Space-A travel like me. He was in the Navy for 16 years, and has seen the better part of the world. Talking to him is both reassuring about the Navy, and Space-A travel. With Space-A and the Navy, he’s been to Hawaii, Guam, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. He’s proof that this method of travel works, and that the Navy experience likewise isn’t so bad.

Apart from him, Delaware sucks. They say it was the first state. I think it was lucky to have been a state at all!

Once again, I’ve been getting a lot of hits from people searching about the Baccalaureate Degree Completion Program with the Navy, known as the BDCP. Very briefly, it is an Officer Candidate School (OCS) program that enlists you into the Navy as an Active Duty sailor while in college, and then you have a slot at OCS after graduating in whatever community you choose and are accepted in.

As someone who is currently in the BDCP, and went through the entire application process, I would be happy to answer any questions that potential applicants might have.

Leave a comment on this post, and I will email you.

While I cannot speak to the experiences in the fleet, I can tell you that the US Navy’s BDCP is like no other commissioning program that I have seen in any of the services, and it is a great alternative to NROTC.

I’m talking with a friend about graduation. We were good friends in the dorms…which seems like ages ago. He just told me that he’s planning on graduating early and going into the Peace Corps.

Damn.

Graduation, already. I know it’s on everybody’s minds, but not tangibly yet.

I have to say, though, I am excited to be joining the Navy after college. Well, technically, since I’m already joined up, I’m excited to be going to OCS, commissioning, and serving.

I had a dream about military funerals last night.

Half of the dream was me looking up “military funerals” online and reading about them on Wikipedia (as I am right now) and not finding anything, strangely. I remember thinking that it might have been a government conspiracy to prevent people from reading about military funerals when reading about military service, so they wouldn’t associate serving with dying.

Then…half of the dream was me actually attending a military funeral…before the funeral began, I remember asking somebody if I could go in Dress Whites (see here) and imagining myself saluting the departed. Then I was actually at the funeral, lowering the coffin into the hole in the ground, folding the National Colors, watching a 3-volley salute…

This reminds me of when I saw Beowulf.  I don’t know why it was that movie, but at the end, when the Yeats gave Beowulf his funeral, it suddenly hit me that one day, I will have a funeral…

Sometimes I feel like I am learning things I’ve already learned. Which technically is being reminded, but instead of wasting the time to re-learn, why not just look back?

June 2, 2007

I thought of this after the scavenger hunt today.
What is leadership?

The question for me still remains: Supply or Intel?

My recruiter wants me to stay Supply, I want to get changed to Intel, but it’s hard to know which to choose because I don’t know anything about either.

Everyone I’ve asked other than Supply guys have told me Intel…but it’s all been on online forums.

Gut tells me go Intel if I can, but that’s based on the name alone.

The media and mainstream Republicans are all focused on Ron Paul’s stance against the war in Iraq. While personally, his anti-war position is appealing to me, too, the importance and relevance of his position is lost when the media portrays him as a strictly anti-war candidate and takes everything out of context.

Ron Paul is not strictly anti-war as the media and other Republicans would like you to think, and he should not be. His opposition to the war in Iraq and our expansionist foreign policy stems from his immaculate understanding of the principles upon which our nation was founded, and the lessons of history. It is reinforced by his clear knowledge of economics and how our trade deficit with China is linked to our falling dollar value, which is the direct cause of inflation, which is linked to how the government is funding the war in Iraq and the increasing prices of health care in this country.

Additionally, Ron Paul, as a Vietnam veteran and a candidate who has actually studied history, realizes the fallacies in nation-building, in interventionist foreign policies, and in trying to police the world: IT DOESN’T WORK AS INTENDED.

Ron Paul isn’t completely anti-war. He believes in what may be the finest document in human history, the Constitution of the United States of America, and it says nothing about avoiding war. It says that war must be declared by CONGRESS, which is elected directly by the people (yeah, you thought it was just a stupid system, but there’s a reason behind it).

As a member of the military and someone that is slated to serve after college, I have sworn an Oath. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Below that, I also agreed to follow all orders of the President of the United States of America, and all officers appointed over me. Nowhere in my mind am I considering disobeying either parts of the Oath, but I’ll be damned if my future commander-in-chief does not follow the Constitution, too.

Ron Paul 2008.

Notable Supply Officers in the US Navy:

Regis Philbin, talk show host
David Robinson,  Sacramento Kings player.

Join the elite. Go Navy.

So I finally came home. The first time in a term. It’s always nice being home…I feel disattached from all the worries and troubles of my chaotic life. It’s different this time, though. I can’t get away from these worries, because the worries are myself. They aren’t external. But it’s helpful, because I can take this time for myself and think a little more.

After my theater class for TRUE, I had sushi with See, which was great. It was nice talking with her, albeit a bit depressing. I am so preoccupied with the crap going on in my mind that nothing else seems to have meaning right now. It’s miserable

Then I came home…but not an hour had passed when Kelly called me, bawling because she and her boyfriend had just broken up. I went to her place and comforted her for a couple hours…I am not strong at the moment, not nearly strong enough for another person to lean on. But I do what I can.

Last night, I had an interesting dream. I dreamed that I was  driving to Georgia for OCS that day. Which is odd…because OCS isn’t in Georgia, nor has it ever been. And the time of the dream was NOW, this day, even though OCS is two years from now. I was driving through winding highways, took a few wrong turns, got back on track, and started driving through a tunnel that would lead me to the base. Suddenly, my car reached the end of the road, and I don’t know how, but I was out of my car and going down an escalator. I emerged through the top of this huge expansive lobby (Adrian would have loved the architecture) that was carved underground. There were Officers and NCOs milling about, and as I got closer to the ground floor, I thought to myself, “I haven’t run in a month, I am so screwed.” And then I realized, “I haven’t even graduated from college or gotten my degree! What am I doing here?” And the dream ended…

I have been getting quite a few hits and my first direct question today about the BDCP in the United States Navy. I suppose I have made a semi-decent documentation of my progress through the program…but if I had known people would actually be looking at it for guidance, I would have done it in far more detail.

Regardless, if you reach this blog with any questions about the Baccalaureate Degree Completion Program in the United States Navy (It’s an OCS - Officer Candidate School) program, feel free to comment here with contact information, and I will be happy to answer any questions I can.

As most people have seen, I sworn in and enlisted into the United States Navy on Thursday. It was a touching moment, if not a bit unceremonious. The fact that my parents came meant so much to me. That they were with me at the beginning of a new phase of my life.

So I’m actually in now. It took 4 hours of driving, 2 hours of paperwork, and 2 minutes of swearing in. And I have 4 years of my life signed away to the United States Navy after college, now. But I’m glad I did it. If you’ve read my blog consistently, you will notice that I attribute a lot of my growth to the military training I’ve had.

Although I’m officially enlisted in the active duty Navy, my only job for the next two years is to keep my grades up, stay in school, and finish my degree. No uniforms, no training requirements. All I have to do is do a PT test twice a year. People have trouble understanding the BDCP process, so I just tell them I’m going off after college, but I’m already signed in. What’s great is I’ll be getting paid, enjoy full active duty benefits, and adding the years that I’m ‘in’ while I’m just going to school.

My next big obstacles are trying to re-designate into Intelligence, and then completing Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island come 2009.

“I, Sean Jin, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

By the time I get back this afternoon from Portland, provided all goes well, I will have joined the United States Navy as a Baccalaureate Degree Completion Program candidate.

Joining the military is something I have wanted to do for the last year and a half, but it has not been, by any means, a single-minded journey. I have changed my mind multiple times, been unsure of what I was doing, wavered back and forth between the Army or the Navy and joining or not joining. Sometimes I’m still unsure. My family has had a difficult time dealing with my decision, but ultimately, they’ve been supportive of me.  My mom, who has been against me joining since day 1, has spent the last year and a half trying to understand why. When I told her I got my Final Select, she was the first one who told me she wanted to be at my Swearing In ceremony.

I have learned that through understanding our differences, we have gotten to know each other better. I hope to do the same with those friends that I consider close.

My parents have come to pick me up.

One thing that has surfaced and been buried again with my parents repeatedly this summer is my decision to join the military. It’ll sometimes start when I mention my progress in the selection process. Or maybe when my mom reads about another soldier that died in Iraq. Or if my dad hears about ‘other things that I might like to do’ after college. And they’ve managed to keep their negative opinions to themselves, or at least present them in a way that’s understanding.

It has long been established that they don’t want me to do this. They’ve come to terms with my decision, and are being as respectful and positive as possible. The other day, though, my mom showed a bit of how she really felt. After a couple glasses of wine, we started talking about the military again. How I’m excited for doing this. And my mom blurted out, “But why do you want to join the military? I don’t get it! You’re so smart. The military is for stupid people.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. After all the ‘education’ and discussions that we had had, after all the progress that I thought we’d had in understanding, and getting past the stereotypes of the military, and the positive aspects that my parents saw in joining…this.

My reaction was instant and furious. I yelled at my mom that it was clearly not true, and that some of the smartest people I know have been in the military. My response wouldn’t have been such if I hadn’t first hand spoken with veterans or decided to join. But the experiences that those choices have taken me have yielded an immense respect for the institution that has defended our country and our way of life.

REGARDLESS of our political situation, or our administration’s stance on foreign affairs, or our problems abroad, the military has sworn to defend us and the Constitution of the United States of America, and always will. And it is something I want to be a part of.