BCT Day 5 (29th) pictures galore!!!

Well, I just spent quite a while looking through 1200 some pictures that WebGuy posted this evening from yesterday. And I found 16 of Nathan! I am very happy about that :D Most were from drilling and from the intramurals the basics did yesterday evening (Nathan did volleyball). Some of the pictures are very similar to one another, so here are a few of the best for your enjoyment!

I would guess that the above is Nathan's flight (a smaller group within a squadron). Out of the 1200 or so basics, the squadron has about 100, and this picture has only 32. Anyway, Nathan is in the front row, second from the right.
Here's another picture from the same time. Nathan has terrific military bearing, of course :P

Another one with not so great military bearing - as in WebGuy caught him blinking! hehehehehe ;-) Nathan is on the right.

And now for the intramurals.....I liked these because it was easier to find his squadron in the pages of pictures! (The squadrons are color coded - lanyards when they are wearing uniforms and shirts when they are doing intramurals).

Nathan standing in formation and waiting for orders I guess.
He did volleyball intramurals yesterday. I think he was getting ready to serve the ball in this one, but I'm not sure.

Above is the group from Nathan's squadron that did volleyball. He is on the left edge of the picture.

p.s. I just realized that you can see any of the pictures in my posts at a larger size by clicking on the picture - so that would be helpful for some of the pictures where Nathan is harder to see :D

ALSO, I just realized there is a video of Nathan doing volleyball! Here is a link - hopefully you will be able to see it!

http://usafawebguy.com/blog/volleyball-intramurals The video is taken from the same place as the last picture (above), so Nathan is off to the left. He is the one who hits the ball when they count "ten."

BCT Day 5 (29th)

(Update: The blog is up and running again - and this morning the basics are doing foreign language placement testing or something like that - so please be praying for Nathan if you think of it!)

Well, I don't have much to offer about yesterday. WebGuy's blog apparently crashed, so I can't refer to that. The schedule says that the basics did some intramurals in the evening. I also know that they had tacos for one of their meals ;-)

Nathan is on the left. I don't know about you, but those tacos look pretty yummy to me :D

And here is another picture of him marching:

Nathan is the one to the right (but not the guy that is cut off).

Other than that, I really don't have any information...sorry!

But, there is this: send Nathan mail!!!!!!! :D Here is his address. Do not send packages, and for now only use plain white paper and regular envelopes. Otherwise Nathan might get some unwanted "special" attention.

Basic Cadet Nathan Carey
P.O. Box 4401
USAF Academy, CO 80841

BCT Day 4 (28th)

First off, here are a few pictures of Nathan from Sunday:

Eating a meal at Mitchell hall (sorry this one is a little blurry!)
Studying his handbook while waiting for some big briefing. Nathan is on the very right edge, just above the two basics with glowing belts. These handbooks include all sorts of trivia, quotes, facts, etc. that the basics need to be memorizing!

Yesterday, according to WebGuy, "The afternoon was similar to the morning where the basics particpated in the activities I described last night. On the whole, this is pretty low stress. They go in to a classroom or squadron assembly room, get a briefing from a cadre, faculty member, graduate, then they move to the next briefing." The briefings were about things such as "Rank and Chain of Command" and "Air Force History and Organization." Here is the schedule WebGuy posted for Monday, to give you an idea of what a day at BCT is like....

0430 Reveille
0445 - 0600 PT
0600 - 0700 Hygiene
0700 - 0800 Breakfast
0800 - 1200 Morning Activities
1200 - 1330 Lunch Formation and Meal
1330 - 1730 Afternoon Activities
1730 - 1830 Dinner
1830 - 1900 Transit
1900 - 2100 Surveys and Briefings
2100 - 2200 Hygiene
2200 TAPS

This is in military time, of course :) So the 2200 at the end is 10:00 pm in civilian time.

And here are the pictures we found of Nathan from yesterday:

Having to walk single file across campus to get to one of their briefings...I can't imagine how long that takes with over 1000 basics! Nathan is the third one in the above picture.

And here he is a little closer up. My mom reminded me of the word I was trying to think of yesterday: military bearing. Nathan always looks solemn in these pictures because he doesn't break his bearing when he is marching.

BCT Days 2 & 3 (26th and 27th)

Saturday:

According to WebGuy, the basics spent most of the day on Saturday being instructed on exactly where to put each and every item in their rooms. This is made easier since the basics are basically not allowed to have anything except what they've been issued!

In the morning, the basics were briefed by the USAFA superintendent. They evidently "ran-marched" (my term) to get there...I don't know why! Anyway, WebGuy posted some pictures of that and we found a couple of Nathan :) I think that they had to call something out as they curved, or something like that. Nathan is right behind the girl in this picture.

Nathan's squadron (Aggressors) also did some marching practice. Here is a link to a video of that: http://usafawebguy.com/blog/flight-aggressors-marching-en-masse. Nathan is in this video...but the only place I've successfully spotted him is right at the very end. When the cadets turn the last time and are marching off screen, he is in the front row right beside the girl with the blonde hair. I must say that I think these basics are doing a pretty good job at marching considering the fact that most of them are just learning how to do it! There were also some pictures from the same time as the video, and here is one with Nathan:

He's a little hard to see in this one, sorry. But he's the one in the back row, right below the white pillar thing of the building. He has a really solemn look on his face, but that's because he's marching and that's just how he marches!

We found one more picture of Nathan from Saturday....when he was sitting in the "cafeteria" at lunch time:

Most of the pictures seem to show the basics with their eyes closed, so we think they just had to keep their eyes down during most of the meal. Meals at USAFA are very strict affairs during BCT.

Sunday:

Today, according to WebGuy, the basics spent most of the day doing testing. They had tests in Math, Computer Science, and Chemistry. I don't know if Nathan took all those tests or not, but I would assume so. These tests are placement tests, to figure out what level of classes the students will go into. So there weren't any pictures from today, at least not yet. There were 3 hours scheduled for the math test, two hours for each of the other tests.

UPDATE: Nathan told us in his letter (received Thursday the 1st) that he took the Calculus 1 & 2 tests, and the computer science one.

BCT Day 1

Well, I've been looking over WebGuy's stuff from yesterday for the past hour or so. Found 2 pictures of Nathan, and found out what he was probably up to from WebGuy's blog.

"Aggressors, Barbarians, and Cobras took part in some training on the Aerobic Fitness Test (AFT)" during the morning, and then in the afternoon they "received a briefing on various agencies that assist the Cadet Wing, went to Cadet Issue, and also did the PT." Cadet Issue is the place where the basics get all of their supplies given to them. PT = Physical Training.

The first two photos are of Nathan in his squadron formation during the swearing in ceremony.

Nathan is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the one above, beside the guy with the glasses.

Second from the left in this one

AND, here is a link to an Association of Graduates (AOG) video about Inprocessing to give you a small taste of life at the Academy..........

http://www.usafa.org/AOG-MOVIES/Class-of-2014-Inprocess/Class-of-2014-Inprocess.html

Inprocessing Day

Well, my brother Nathan is an appointee (and now a Basic!) at the United States Air Force Academy (ie, USAFA). This is a version of college - on steroids (as in, add a bunch of military stuff to it!). Nathan flew to Colorado Springs yesterday, and today he arrived at the USAFA campus and went through the grueling inprocessing day, where the new basics get yelled at, get a buzz hair cut, get yelled at, have to leave all their stuff behind, get yelled at, have to carry a 40 lb. bag around, get yelled at, etc.

USAFA has a site called WebGuy where a photographer posts picture for all the families of students to see. He already has 4,000 pictures up, after just one day! Well, we looked through most of those, and we found two of Nathan!

(nice job of closing your eyes Nathan!) ;-)

I also got a 30-second phone call from him a few minutes ago....he knew better than to call Mom & Dad because they're already in bed. He basically told me that he is in the A-squadron (Aggressors) and that he had to go. I would guess he had a nice cadre member breathing down his neck, but I don't know. I would guess they were soon going to take his phone from him. I know he won't have it for the five weeks or so while he undergoes Basic Cadet Training (or Beast as it is affectionately called!)

So that's all I have to report at this point....I wasn't expecting the phone call tonight - and I didn't realize he would be in such a hurry. But it was good to know that he survived the day :D

update: here is a picture that Nathan's host family (the family he stayed with Wednesday night) emailed us. This was taken right before the boys went through inprocessing.

The family had five basics stay with them, three of whom were from our area. The one to the right of Nathan lives just a few minutes from us! So we were happy that Nathan was able to fly to Colorado and spend the night with someone he's already gotten to know a little bit.