Luigi59
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Making The Grade: Newest Cadets Are Swabs No More
Shoulder boards seal the deal in ceremony at Coast Guard Academy
By Jennifer Grogan
Published on 8/19/2008 The Connecticut Day
New London - The newest cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy wore shoulder boards for the first time Monday, changing them from a “nobody” on campus to a “somebody,” they said.
Swab Summer was over.
”I almost feel kind of important, like I actually mean something here,” said Jacob Gamble, 18, of Lockport, La. “Now I'm somebody. Now I can do my part.”
Swab Summer is an intense, seven-week training program designed to transform civilian students into military recruits and to prepare them for the academic year. The academy's Class of 2012 started with 295 members but dropped to 273 after 22 either did not qualify or chose to leave.
Those who completed the training were rewarded Monday with 4th-class cadet shoulder boards, which are navy-blue pads without stripes to show their standing in the corps.
”Now I feel like a part of the corps of cadets, not that I'm just here seeing what the corps is like,” Mike Francis, 18, of Salem, Mass, said at a reception after the ceremony on Washington Parade Field.
”We're legitimate,” his friend Dustin See, 18, of West Point, Va., added.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=c101dde0-33a6-45e5-b477-3c8b82f7a1e0
Shoulder boards seal the deal in ceremony at Coast Guard Academy
By Jennifer Grogan
Published on 8/19/2008 The Connecticut Day
New London - The newest cadets at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy wore shoulder boards for the first time Monday, changing them from a “nobody” on campus to a “somebody,” they said.
Swab Summer was over.
”I almost feel kind of important, like I actually mean something here,” said Jacob Gamble, 18, of Lockport, La. “Now I'm somebody. Now I can do my part.”
Swab Summer is an intense, seven-week training program designed to transform civilian students into military recruits and to prepare them for the academic year. The academy's Class of 2012 started with 295 members but dropped to 273 after 22 either did not qualify or chose to leave.
Those who completed the training were rewarded Monday with 4th-class cadet shoulder boards, which are navy-blue pads without stripes to show their standing in the corps.
”Now I feel like a part of the corps of cadets, not that I'm just here seeing what the corps is like,” Mike Francis, 18, of Salem, Mass, said at a reception after the ceremony on Washington Parade Field.
”We're legitimate,” his friend Dustin See, 18, of West Point, Va., added.
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=c101dde0-33a6-45e5-b477-3c8b82f7a1e0
