CULP Update

J

Jcleppe

10-Year Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2010
Messages
6,714
Well the younger son has been at Ft. Knox since the 15th of June, completed all the in processing and was scheduled to leave today for Bosnia. So much for the best laid plans.

The flight was scheduled for 2:00pm with a 1 hour layover in Dulles before taking off for Austria. Keeping in the true form of the Airlines these days the flight was delayed 1 hour....Maintenance. Well looks like it's delayed again and even if it does take off they will have missed the connecting flight. For now it looks like a trip back to Ft. Knox and possibly back home early due to a cancelled trip.

It's a shame that all these cadets will miss such a good opportunity because the Airlines can't seem to get there act together these days.

This just goes to show that all the cadets heading off to new places will need to be prepared for anything. A group that is at Ft. Knox waiting to go to Vietnam found out at the last minute that the country was not ready for them, they spent an extra week at Ft. Knox before they could head out for a shortened trip. The cadre did a nice job keeping them busy, they took them to Nashville and on a camping trip while they waited.

Good luck to all those still waiting for their CULP dates, just remember it's not confirmed until you step off the plane in the country you are going to.
 
Last edited:
Thats a crummy deal for these cadets that worked hard and got selected for a great opportunity to lose it over airline issues.
 
Looks like the flight was cancelled. They are going to try the whole thing over again tomorrow. Hope it works out.
 
Looks like the cadre was able to get things worked out, not quite the departure they were hoping for.

There were about 23 of them traveling together, they will now be split up with the first two (my son one of the two) leaving tomorrow, this time to Newark then Munich, then Bosnia. The rest will follow on a bunch of different flights through a lot of different countries. My son and one other will get there first, the cadre shows up a few hours later, the rest will be on flights continuing through Friday. The cadre did a great job of re-scheduling that many people in such a short time, Military precision and all that. What an adventure.
 
Sounds like a couple CULP trips had problems. The people going to Angola were told about a month ago they were no longer going there (except for 2 males and 2 females) and were possibly to be headed to Romania. Good thing they were able to firm out the plans for the Romania trip, would've been a bummer to lose a CULP trip.
 
Anyone - have you been able to use CULP to satisfy any school requirements for international/cultural diversity? The program was mentioned at New Student Conference and it sounds great. We are trying to compare this with a regular summer study abroad term.
 
Well at least some of the cadets have arrived in Sarajevo, about 7 of them. The rest are stuck at the Airport in Austria. To short of a layover and they all missed the flight the Sarajevo. My son was lucky enough to be the first to arrive, the other 16 will be arriving hopefully by tomorrow.

Again, quite an adventure.
 
BlindROTC said:
Anyone - have you been able to use CULP to satisfy any school requirements for international/cultural diversity? The program was mentioned at New Student Conference and it sounds great. We are trying to compare this with a regular summer study abroad term.
Click to expand...

Not sure about whether CULP can be used for any credit at the school. My son did talk to his advisor and they are looking into it. I would imagine it would on a school by school basis.

CULP would be quite shorter then a traditional study abroad since they are only in the country for 21 days at most. Great opportunity though, and it will add to their OMS score as well, which is an added bonus. I don't think ost of the cadets are thinking about that right now, they are just excited for the opportunity.
 
Jcleppe said:
Well at least some of the cadets have arrived in Sarajevo, about 7 of them. The rest are stuck at the Airport in Austria. To short of a layover and they all missed the flight the Sarajevo. My son was lucky enough to be the first to arrive, the other 16 will be arriving hopefully by tomorrow.

Again, quite an adventure.
Click to expand...

Wow. This is some adventure. I guess they are now veterans of airlines, travel and their ever present delays. The hard is part is behind them now.

I hope they have a great time.
 
Bosnia trip

Heard from my son. They are having a wonderful time. Today going to Mostar to tour the ancient history. Yesterday, they were treated like dignitaries on a Bosnian military base, and learned how their military is working together. Glad things are working out for them.
 
DS finally made it to Tanzania. He got there this past Sunday morning 2 am local time. He was delayed because he did not have the yellow fever shot (it was not on the shot list that he had received in January nor when he received his shots over Spring Break in March, nor did his ROTC unit know about it) and it had an incubation period of 10 days before he could travel. He and another one of his fellow ROTC travelers had to stay behind at Ft. Knox waiting for the days to count by. He will only have 2 weeks in country instead of 3 weeks.

So he left last Friday morning with just he and the other ROTC girl who didn’t have the shot either (I think that there are 5 others already in country from his CULP unit) and flew from Louisville to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Nairobi, Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro. He said he was able to get out into the city of Amsterdam for a few hours but did not venture away from the airport in Kenya. He said it took over 30 hours to finally get there.

He is placed in an orphanage teaching English to little kids. I got an email yesterday with words like, "amazing," “awesome,” "incredible," "fortunate," "moving," "friendly," and "nice." How cool is that! I hope he can email me back again with more.
 
FinFan,

Glad to hear your son has made it to Tanzania. I hear you on the shots, my son called while at Ft. Knox and said he had to have a coupe shots not on the list as well, his shots did not require any incubation period. Sorry your son had to spend extra days in sunny Ft. Knox. That 30 hour travel time sounds brutal, I bet he was glad when that was over.

Sounds like he is having a great time. The trip sounds much different then my son's, I guess each trip has it's own mission, they are all such great opportunities.

Keep us updated, great to hear how they are all doing.
 
I heard one team heading to one of the locations in Asia was delayed by 10 days due to some kind of administrative screw up between the Army and the State Department: paper work problem. (nt, I hear this is not Vietnam that was already mentioned in the post earlier)

I am left scratching my head: it's not like they just planned this. This has been in the works for months and months. the cadets are stuck in Fort Knox killing time. The actual length of the program in the country is barely 10 days,

What a shame!
 
Unfortunatly this is not that uncommon. Between paperwork that does not get straighted out in time, host countries not ready for the group, or just an out right cancellation. Marist made a good point when CULP applications started going out, "Be ready for anything and don't buy that travel book too soon" A group headed to Angola was cancelled except for 4 cadets, the rest were lucky to be able to, in a short time, switch the trip to Romania. I can only imagine the paperwork, planning, and subsequent SNAFU's that happen when trying to arrange 1,000 cadets travel to several different countries, given that they are probably under staffed as it is.

I really feel for those whose trips were delayed or cancelled, my son was just lucky they were able to re-schedule flights for all the cadets so quickly.

Good luck to everyone.
 
My son's CULP trip was delayed by over 10 days. They stayed those extra days in Fort Knox. They looked for volunteers to stay extra 10 days in that assigned country. He volunteered. The rest of them will return on schedule, which means that the actual amount of time spent overseas is barely 50% of the original plan.

As such, the whole CULP became 6 weeks affair for my son start to finish. He is happy to have spent more time in the army base, so I am happy. Apparently he is taking to the army base life style like fish to water. good for him.

My son told me that it's extremely hot there: 105 degrees, something like that!
 
Well the Bosnia CULP Team has made it back to the States in one piece. By all accounts it was a successful trip enjoyed by all. A few sunburns and some overstuffed luggage and a lot of stories to tell. Luckily the trip back went without a hitch, no missed flights or major delays. I heard rumors of a trip to Six Flags while back at Ft. Knox, a fun way to wind down. 4th of July at the US Embassy, River rafting in Banja Luca, and a 4 night trip to Dubrovnik just a few of the highlights. The Bosnian Army was as accommidating as they could be with what limited funds they have. CULP is a great opportunity for cadets.

Best of luck to all those still on their CULP assignments.
 
HaHa, the fun never ends.

The boy was scheduled to fly home this afternoon, as luck and poor planning would have it they had only scheduled a 40 min. layover in Chicago and of course the plane out of Louiville KY is 1 hour late departing. Looks like an exciting night at the Chicago Airport before finally getting home.

Advise for future CULP participants, make sure your HR person does not book with United, and if they do, make sure you have long layovers to acommidate the inevitable delays.

Don't even want to think about when or if he will ever see his luggage again.

Just part of the Adventure.
 
DS made it back from Africa....He had a blast!!!!!!

He showed us pictures of him teaching English and Math skills to the little kids--standing at the chalk board----giving high fives to the little kids who got the correct answer. He wanted to bring all the children home with him.

He truly came back focused, happy and made many new friends.

The only negative was the shot thingee where he was delayed for a week.

They hiked a portion of Mt. Kilimanjaro and flew to the island of Zanzibar. He missed the safari because of his shot delay :(

He said one AROTC girl in his group tore her ACL playing basketball the day he arrived and they flew her to Germany for surgery and she was back at Ft. Knox when he got back.

They flew Delta and really did not have any issues except for normal (I think) in Kenya. But he never missed a flight or had a delay.

Overall, a great success!!!
 
CULP

My son just arrived in Taiwan with his CULP program. I Have only seen a few pictures from FB but I am sure they will have a great adventure as well.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top