Monday, August 5, 2013


Close to midnight all of us cadets shared a feast of watermelon in the Carpathian Mountains.


Friendship. In essence this all that needs to be said about this blog. Not only were friendships and bonds made stronger on our trip to the Carpathian Mountains, but lasting one were created. If an outsider were to view our interaction with one another they would assume we were friends for many years. Sure, some of the Ukrainian cadets did not grasp the entirety of the conversations we had with them, but nonetheless this did not stop us from having deep and meaningful conversations. For instance, we enjoyed discussing how we, as young cadets, are the future of our militaries and how it is our duty to make our militaries better than when we first joined. We also daydreamed about running into one another as officers and having our two militaries interacting with one another. Our mission was simple; teach the Ukrainian cadets English so the United States can develop good relations with the Ukraine. It is one thing to make a good impression with one another but making lasting friendships in three weeks is not always a guarantee. A good impression can be easily formed with just a simple handshake, but it takes more to develop meaningful and lasting friendships. This team of American cadets accomplished that.

Our team was energetic and eager to get to know these cadets. We viewed them as our peers and were eager to learn from them just as they were eager to learn from us. This mixture of enthusiasm and respect helped earned us their trust. They opened up to us about their home life and what concerned them about the upcoming future. Our trip to the Carpathian Mountains was a great getaway and enabled us to focus on topics that did not just concern the military. For instance, on the bus ride back home, cadets from the US and Ukraine shared iPods and talked about their favorite songs and artists. One Ukrainian cadet brought his guitar and we listened to the cadets sing. The Americans on the other hand, decided to loudly shout out our songs. We might have not been in tune, and the lyrics might have not been spot on, but nonetheless the Ukrainian cadets got a good laugh out of it.

The best way to wrap up this trip is to say how thankful we are for the opportunity cadet command has given us. It has been a blessing to help build relations with Ukraine and more importantly represent the United States. The cherry on top of this whole mission has been the friendships. Speaking on behalf of this group, I know the US cadets will continue to develop the friendships we started over here. The common thing the Ukrainian cadets told us was to stay in touch. We plan to do so not because we are ordered to but because we truly want to.

1 comment:

  1. Enjoyed watching you all learn about people and culture. You did a good job with this blog, and I really enjoyed your recap.

    ReplyDelete