I'll start off by apologizing to my blogochochillas for not posting anything in a while. I've been sort of busy, because apparently my professors actually want me to work on this 20 page essay. I'm not sure when this event happened, except that it was a random Tuesday night some weeks ago. Antonio, my fellow West Pointer, Jordan, our ROTC amigo, and I were told that we needed to be at the main auditorium for a concert that night. This might strike you as odd, but these random pieces of entertainment are quite common here. The other day we had one that was a sort of literary quiz bowl between the six cadet companies. We also got to see one of our Chilean friends prance about dressed as none other than Bernado O'Higgins, the liberator of Chile. But I digress.
We arrived at the concert, Antonio and I wearing our formal West Point uniforms and Jordan wearing his Class As. So there we were, waiting for the concert to begin, when this Chilean officer approaches us and casually tells us that there will be a three star general there who wants to talk with us. Now, I generally like to have at least a heads up about this thing before I leave my room. This would give me time to shave again, shine my shoes, and whatnot. This time, I didn't have the opportunity to do that, so my friends and I just looked each other for anything to fix before we went to meet this general. At that point, we realized that there wasn't just going to be one general, but that there was going to be a whole slew of military officer. The concert was entertainment for a conference of Pacific nations like Japan, New Zealand, Chile, America, and others. So we tried to enjoy the concert and not think about meeting this entire delegation of officers.
Once the concert was over, the school presented an award to the three star general who we were going to meet. He accepted the award and as he was walking off the stage, he saw us sitting in the front row and pointed to us as he left. There would be no avoiding this interaction. We headed to the area behind the auditorium where all the officers were relaxing, drinking cocktails and whatnot. A bunch of officers started talking to us, but it wasn't long before some West Point grads grabbed us and had us take a picture with a West Point two star general. In doing this, they exiled Jordan to talk to some foreign officers and second lieutenants. So we talked to them for a while and we all got some generals coins. Everybody was actually pretty laid back and nobody pointed out anything wrong with our uniforms or haircuts, which is always good. They were passing around Pisco Sour and all manner of snacks, but I decided it would be best not to drink around a bunch of generals, coronels, and Special Forces officers, of which there were quite a few. I guess I still have a problem with drinking around officers. Hopefully, it's just a phase.
Everyone we talked to was pretty intent on making sure were understood how important it was to make connections in the school so we could "climb the ladder". They kept mentioning how the people we were living with in the school would be the leaders of the army and how that would help us "climb the ladder". One guy mentioned how if we joined Special Forces we would be able to "climb the ladder" to some "really fun places". Alright, they might not have said the phrase "climb the ladder" that much, but the overall impression I got was that they were career oriented people, which would explain why they were all Foreign Area Officers and embassy people. We also talked to a guy from the Canadian army and a woman from Australia. At the end of the night, they staggered off to their bus drunk. I guess you could say it was a really interactive, cultural experience.
Normally, I'm just content to drink Pisco.
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