Monday, September 30, 2013

Diary of a Sheriff in Training.. Day One!



Quantico VA 09/29/2013
0600

Diary of a Sheriff in Training..

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks…hmmm

For 20 years I wanted to come to this elite academy, filling out extensive applications, submitting to my superiors whom forwarded to the sheriffs (at the time) only to have them languish on their desks and fall by the wayside for lack of submission by our sheriff. New sheriff came into office? same process, same success…

So 20 years later, the “submission” made it to FBI and here I sit in Quantico VA, in a dorm room / 4 person ‘”Suite” (two bedrooms w twin beds, sharing one common bathroom) my “Suitemates” are from VA, Philly, and DC

Today we found our way around this massive 13 building government complex. Each building is connected by “Gerbil Tunnels” that is about as confusing as the tax code. Trying to navigate this place reminds me of the mice/cheese/ maze…

213 students, 24 countries including, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Latvia, Costa Rica, Russia and Uganda.

We are grouped into 4 “Sections” of 50-ish people 

I am in Section 3, today we are told of our impending “Fitness Challenge” where we are slated to go through a series of physical fitness obstacles to determine if we may continue further into the program or be dismissed. We are told we will be “running” with our section (3) in my case together. We are also told to “run together” and to keep pace with the leader of our run group…I gazed around our class and saw the guy behind me… 

Tall, lanky and lean, his name was “Antionio Degemkee” I spoke to him and inquired of his heritage.. as we say in the south “hey man, where you from?”  “Uganda”….. he answered.. my heart sank, then I asked the question, that I already knew the answer to.. “do you run a lot?” He said “everywhere”….Great! I thought about kicking his ankle…

Tomorrow… the journey begins…