Made it 3 days in my endeavor to quit nicotine. It was a disparate failure. I'm going to find a way to tackle this problem more aggressively within the next week. Apart from a new semester going smoothly, my motivation in terms of willpower is still at a low, otherwise I would've quit cold turkey easily. Unrelated: one of my instructors is an officer, a Captain, with these schools' badges pinned on his shirt in order of awesomeness: Sapper Pathfinder Airborne Air Assault He teaches Physics after a career in the Corps of Engineers. There are tons of people with these qualifications at West Point-- if you're not familiar with these specialized schools just google some videos or something-- but I see this maniac every other day and he teaches me physics. If that's not a role model for me, I don't know what is. Seriously though, I have to quit nicotine.
Airborne is a super weird thing in Canada. Like, it should be a badge of pride, but instead it's a symbol of a regiment disbanded after repeated dishonourable behaviour - peaking with the Somalia Affair.
The last official US jump was in 2003 on an airstrip in Iraq. This summer I'll be placed in either an Air Assault or Airborne slot, but while an Airborne slot is like 10 times more competitive at West Point, it's considered a lot easier. All you do is jump out of planes like a badass, complete with weekends off and A/C in your barracks, and come back home with minimal broken ankles. It's been 14 years since the last actual jump, but being in an "airborne" division (101st, 82nd to name some famous ones) in the U.S. comes with a dope Airborne tab over your unit patch and a whole lot of history for you to respect. As far as "scandals" go, I can't name major specifics, especially not to Airborne units, but I don't assume there's a clear record anywhere in the Army. Then again there's D-Day. Edit: I say official jump because I'm not and will probably never be related to Special Forces and neither I nor you know what the hell they're doing at any time, which means they're doing a good job.