Cadets

Hi All. So I'm at it again. Well, this time, I want to write about Army Cadets. Now, if anyone knows me, they have to know that I am deeply involved with cadets. The thing I love, promote, and everything in cadets is the leadership they teach. You can't not be in cadets and learn how to be a leader. To me, I think this is extremely important because leadership makes you confident, able to have a better choice of friends and generally be more relaxed in situations. This helps when you are a teenager and you have to handle some pretty wonderful situations. The part, in cadets, that is bad, is the fact that it is controlled by humans, and they tend to make some pretty wicked mistakes. And sometimes this with cost a person....but it doesn't happen very often. Anther thing, like everywhere, you have a super awesome amazing person who joins cadets. Then the fun begins. Because humans control cadets, things get messed up and it isn't good. Say that person who joins is good, then the Officers will be like, well this person is amazing. So lets push this person through as much as possible....and in the meanwhile, this amazing person doesn't get the chance to learn the things they need to, and misses out on some really good experiences.

On the flip side, you have a yahoo who joins and once again, the Officers of the unit are like, this person is dumb. We will let them go through cadets normally. And this creates a problem, a big one. Because situations, learning experiences are missed, and not handled and that person, the amazing or bad cadet misses out.

I understand where the Officers from a unit come from, their reasoning for things. But like the rest of the world, politics ends up taking over. Now, call me dumb, but I honestly DO NOT understand politics. At all. I don't get the idea, the only thing that I can associate with it, is that dumb things happen when it walks in the room. So, you have cadets that is run by humans and they get political. And I don't even really know what that saying means, I just know that someone get jipped out of something and bad things happen when people start making changes that, THEY say is helping, or the right decisions. Well, welcome to behind the scenes, it's not. In fact, you just crushed that person, and you look like an idiot. And this is What happens in cadets. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough, that when the same person makes the dumb decisions, cadets start to lose faith in their ability to lead properly.

Personally, I think that if there isn't anyone to fill a position or get something and meet the acquirement's, don't have it, don't put it in, don't do anything with it. If you do something and give someone who doesn't deserve it, the small 12 year-olds are looking at that and thinking, oh we don't have to have that, or do that or we are allowed to act that way, do that. And it's pretty much the opposite of the whole idea. Young people are very impressionable, therefore you have to be careful what you do in cadets. You have to be am example at all times. Because, basically we are teaching young children how to act normally and if you do it wrong, then you have a gigantic mess on your hands.

Now, I love cadets, I've said this before. The program is good, the people in the program can be not so good, and that is what you have to deal with. You have to learn how and it's not fun. But in the end, but the time you age out, you will have learnt a TON more then you would have if you just stayed home and watched TV. And like everything, there are problems, and somethings they are extreme, but you have to remember the important reason why you are in cadets. If it's good enough, then stay, if the problem is too big, then you have to choice of quiting.

Another big thing in cadets for me, is the friends I have made. They are the best, and I couldn't live without them. Friends are sometime the only reason why I stay in cadets.

So think about it. Cadets is a good program, but there are problems just like the world.

-J