Nylf

NYLF: National Youth Leadership Forum. As some of you may know from my post last week mentioning it, I went to Washington DC for the week to participate in that. Specifically, the one on Defense, Intelligence, and Diplomacy. Basically about the US government.

I can safely say that I did more work in that week than I ever will in any week at school, but I had a very good time, despite this, and the minor lack of sleep.

I arrived in DC via the Regan National Airport, where I promptly lost my driver's license. Fortunately, I noticed before I left, and inquired about it. They found it on the plane, and gave it to me. A lovely start to the trip, I thought...

Once I sorted that out, and the time came, I boarded a charter bus to take me, and the other people going to NYLF at that time to the hotel that we stayed at. There, I got a room key, and a whole mess of papers and things to look at. Sadly, I did not have my own hotel room (hey...401 students there, it just couldn't happen...), but that's okay. I didn't have to deal with some brain-dead idiot, nor a person who enjoys pretending like they live in the ghetto.

That evening, we all got to listen to a speaker. The speaker was (I believe. I don't have my little journal here...) Ambassador Black, who said he coordinates all international counter-terrorism action. His speech was somewhat interesting. However, I don't find diplomacy to be particularly intriguing, so it wasn’t the greatest thing for me. I did, however, admire his ability to dodge questions. 30 or so people asked him questions, and he actually answered maybe 3 or 4 of those.

The next day, everyone went to Capitol Hill, where we could go visit congressmen if we wished, or tour the various buildings in the area. Personally, I took a tour of the Capitol building and had lunch in the offices of the House of Representatives. There really wasn’t time for much else.

After going to Capitol Hill, we returned, and had a briefing on the countries involved in the strategic simulation that we would have later in the week. The speaker was rather uninteresting, and the information he said was in one of the books given to us on the first day. Of course, I don’t know how many people there actually knew that…

That night, there were ‘career panels’ for Defense, Intelligence, and Diplomacy. These basically had several people who worked in the various fields, and talked about jobs there, then answered questions. I went to the defense panel, but after sitting through it, I kind of wish I had gone to the intelligence one, since I didn’t learn anything in the defense panel. There was one memorable thing about that though. An Army Colonel who was there said at the end of it, “When you see all those ads on TV about getting career training in the military, always remember that what we basically do is kill people and break things.”

On third day, there were visits to various places in the DC area. Back on the first day, we were given a list of places to go, and had to choose where we wanted to go for the third day. I went to the Naval Academy. The campus there is very nice. Lots of big, ornate buildings there, especially dorm building, which somehow houses 4,000 midshipmen. When we first got there, we got to listen to various people speak to us about the academy, life there, and what happens after. Freshman year at the Naval Academy really sucks, from what I hear. Lunch was in the mess hall there, which was enormous, since it was built to accommodate everyone at the same time. After lunch, we had a tour of the “Yard” as they insisted upon calling the campus.

That night, there were a bunch of small seminars that we could go to. I chose to go to one (the only one, I believe) about the intelligence community. The guy who talked to us in that was a former commander of Army Intelligence. He talked about his experiences during the Cold War, and about more recent intelligence related things.

On the forth day, we had another speaker, General Schoomaker, the Army Chief of Staff. He was a pretty good speaker, and what he said was rather interesting. He told everyone about his career in the army, as well as how he ended up as the Army Chief of Staff.

Afterwards, we went to the Marine War College at Quantico. However, before I explain what we did there, I guess I should say something about this ‘simulation’ that I mentioned earlier. In the Forum, there were a bunch of groups. Each group had 23 people, and each person was given a job (decided by the group as a whole) from the US government to be for this simulation. Personally, I was the Director of the NSA. This simulation was a hypothetical situation involving the Columbian Terrorist organization known as the FARC.

At Quantico, we basically learned what we should do during the simulation that evening, meaning, how information is processed and stuff. The role of the Intelligence people, like me, was rather simple. Collect information, analyze it, and then give it to someone else to decide what to do with it.

That night, we had the simulation. I don’t feel like explaining it in detail right now, but if anyone would like to know about it, ask, and I will tell.

The next day, we went to Arlington National Cemetary in the morning to see the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

After that, we went to the Smithsonians. I had already been to most of them, so I decided to go to the American History Museum, which I had not been to before. There were several interesting exhibits, such as the one about the American Presidents. One exhibit I wanted to see was the one about WWII. Unfortunately, it was closed for renovation. That was the only museum I visited that day.

After we got back on the buses, we went to Union Station, where we could shop and get dinner. I didn’t buy any souvenirs. I don’t know why, but souvenir buying just isn’t something I do…maybe it’s because I’ve been to Disney World so many times.

Once our time at Union Station was over, we went to various memorials in Washington. We visited the memorials for FDR, Jefferson, Lincoln, Vietnam, Korea, and the Iwo Gima Memorial. The Iwo Gima Memorial is kind of strange, since there are 5 people, 10 legs, and 11 arms…

The next day, I flew back home.

Once I get the pictures developed and scanned, I can add pictures to this little tale here.

For some reason, I think I missed something…but without my journal, I can’t be sure.

Glad your trip went well Kokiri Kid. The acronym of that terriost organisation would sound like a swear word if you gave it to the right people, with the right kind of accent.

well, yes...and we did Say "farc" not "F-A-R-C" What I first thought of was a TA unit, and the common phrase "Fark you!" over at TAU...

I don't currently remember what FARC stands for though...

It stands for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia. They kidnapped a bunch of tourrists in Colombia last year and left some behind because they didn't have suitable hiking boots. They released the rest just before christmas.

Ah...That's right...I was just too lazy to look it up again.

Released them? Hmm...You sure you're not confusing them with another Columbian terrorist group? (I could be wrong...)

No I'm pretty sure it was them, I am try to dredge up stuff that I only heard a five mintue news report on three months ago, so I may be wrong.

Arlington National Seminary? haha. I think you mean Cemetary.

Yeah, D.C. is a great place. Sounds like you spent a LOT of time there. I AM interested in the simulation, too. Hmm...how old is too old to participate in this stuff, eh? I would LOVE to do one of these things again. I should have tried to get into more when I was younger.

Cool trip, KKid. :0)

Sounds like a nice trip ^^
Is this the U.N thing, or just a camp in general?
And can't wait for the pics ^^

I said Seminary? Damned spell check late at night...

Time to fix that...

Well, since I gotta go to class, I'll explain the simulation later...

But I think it's just for High School Juniors & Seniors, BBD...sorry.

Ah well. "Youth truly is wasted on the young" haha, j/k

At least I think that there are teacher conferences for national and international groups, so maybe I'll be able to hook up with something like that.

*must go to class now, too*

Originally posted by Peefy
Sounds like a nice trip ^^
Is this the U.N thing, or just a camp in general?
And can't wait for the pics ^^

Oops...missed that.

It's not a UN thing, it's just a US thing. Although we could visit embassies, it wasn't international. There were only people from America there.

I really need to remember to bring my digital camera next time I do something like this...