CtheHammer

PAE=Physical Aptitude Examination NROTC does not look at your PAE, but if you get in they will have physical requirements that you MUST meet. @ChrisCool If you can, try to get into some sort of sport this last year of highschool, preferably in the fall. They want you to tell them of everything you do that did not make it onto the application, and so you can tell them that you have done something. If you have done JV, then that could very well be sufficient. I think they want to see that you have done a sport where there is a high level of committment (practice after school almost everyday), and you are having to work with others. I went to a high school of over 4,000 students, so it would be very difficult for me to get on a varsity team even if I really worked at it, since there is so much talent at my school anyway. @Ruin My county used to be the only one in GA that had the same grading system as yours, but this put all the students from my county behind other students in the state so they changed the system to the one it is now. C

I had zero high school athletics and they want something. I worked out on my own and did rec league athletics until I was too old but I didn't do anything through the school. On my PAE (which I don't completely remember since it was a year ago) I did 56 push-ups, 13 pull-ups, 98-100 inches on standing long jump, my shuttle run was less than stellar (I was on dusty tile so I could not turn around very fast), and my basketball throw was a little better than average. For my GPA, it is with all my classes. While the 98's in band and the 100's in PE and Health helped, my other grades were not that bad, I only got like 6 B's total (here B=80-89%) I went and visited the Academy through Candidate Visitation Program (get into this if you have the option), and I got to shadow a Mid, go to his classes, eat the same food as him and sleep in their dorms. They say that academics are their main priority, but I would have to say that they can say that because academics can be an automatic disqualifier. While most of the people I met were not "dumb jocks," most seemed to be only slightly better than average in academics. In my Mid's calculus class I was actually helping one of the students with a calculus problem! Look at it another way. There is a prep school for people that have everything but the academics, but there is nothing for people who have everything but may be lacking a little in the athletics. For them it is "so sorry charlie." From what I picked up, they sent out one set of appointment letters, saw what the acceptance level was, and then sent out more appointment letters and also rejection letters. I recieved my rejection letter on April 19, when the college declaration day (the day you need to declare which college you are going to by) is May 1. It took them quite a while to decide not to offer me an appointment. Fortunately I had recieved a full four year NROTC scholarship, which is not nearly as competitive to get, so I was set up with my plan B (I had also been accepted to GA Tech by that point also). MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PLAN B. You can in no way assume that the Academy is a sure thing unless your father recieved the MoH. I had a plan B and now I will be in what is probably the largest NROTC unit in the nation, and I will still get a great education at a great school (and my chances of meeting girls is a bit better ). As it is, at this point I figure that it is God's plan for my life for me to be at GA Tech instead of the Academy, so I'm not complaining. Would I like to go to the Academy? YOU BET! But I'm content with where I am and where I plan on going. Once again, the best of luck to you, and even if you don't make it the on the first try, it is still possible to try again after a year of college. I can't because of my vision, but about 1/3 of every entering class has done a year of some sort of post-secondary education. C

In the truck it's 12 Stones, but in the computer I have a sampler CD that came with the 12 Sones CD. I am really starting to get into some of the Christian rock/alternative music that is out there. C

@ChrisCool and Ragodamdiculous Hey, I thought I might add my perspective since I just finished the application process for the Naval Academy this spring (wasn't successful, but it took them until April 19th to decide this), and I am going to do Naval ROTC at Georgia Tech with a full, four-year scholarship. Several important things to know for applying to the Naval Academy (or any service academy). 1.Keep your grades up. They do have minimums, fall below them and you aren't considered. There is also a minimum SAT/ACT score, so practice for those tests. (I finished with a 3.9 (94.1%) GPA and a composite 1470 on my SAT) 2.Stay involved in EC (extra-curricular) activities. They DO NOT want someone who sat on their butt and ate cheese puffs all school year. Find one (two is better) activity and try to rise as high as possible into its leadership positions (I was a section leader and co-captian of my high school's large marching band) 3.HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS. Everyone at a service academy has a sport be it baseball, football, or underwater basket weaving. Varsity is best but other levels will do (if you have good academics to back it up). There is a physical fitness test as part of the application, and this has minimums as well. (I had no high school athletics, if I did, I would probably be doing plebe summer right now instead of writing this). 4.Avoid being a disciplinary problem. They do not want someone that is going to be a problem or possibly have to be kicked out later. Remember, the monetary value placed on a service academy education is valued at $300,000, and it is a gift from the American People. They do not give this gift to just anybody, and so you have to be better than the best to be the sort of person that they might want. Something else to keep in mind. Depending on where you live, competition for nominations may be tighter than competitions for appointments. I come from the Atlanta area, and I know that I was competing with at least 30 people for 10 slots in my DISTRICT. I later got an appointment from my senator, but even then it was kind of goofy the way I got it. If you live in East Nowhere, Alaska, odds are you won't have any sort of problem. But if you live in Norfolk, Virginia for example, competition will be fierce. No, I wish you the best of luck. I hope what I have posted here is usefull. If you have any questions about the application process or Academy life. C

Any Marines in here, please do not take offense at this, it is all in good fun MARINE: Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential A sailor and a Marine are using the restroom at the same time and when they finish doing their business the Marine goes to wash his hand as the sailor goes to leave. "Hey," says the Marine, "in the Marine Corp they teach us to wash our hands after we pee." "Well, in the Navy they teach us not to pee on our hands." C

Some friends of mine and I have actually wondered if there is a girls' name that rhymes with Chuck. C

There was this former Special Forces soldier that had three daughters and had a habit of cleaning the shotguns whenever one of them was to be picked up for a date (he was very picky and VERY protective). Now it just so happened that all three daughters had dates on the same night. The first date comes to the door and announces "My name's Freddy, I'm here to get Betty, we're going to get spaghetti, do you think she's ready?" Since things seemed okay the guy let his daughter go. The next guy comes and says "My name's Lance, I'm here to get Nance, we're going to the dance, is she ready by chance?" Once again, this date seemed okay so they were off. The third date rings the doorbell a little later. "My name's Chuck BLAM!!!

I have made a day version of the nightbattle map. Yes it requires changing the texture files a little bit (or you can pull from the M08 map, night battle is just a smaller, slightly edited version of this), and editing the environment files, but if you really want to make it look good, you also need to go into the darkmap tool and adjust the lighting so that all of the actors don't look dark. This is a process I haven't quite figured out, but it involves making a new .map file and I have done it about three times. C

Is it possible to get older versions (say 4.0) for even less? C

No, what I think will be interesting is how they will define themselves and what sort of roles they will take on. Could it be a Marine version of the SEALs? Since World War II and the UDT days the SEALs have been the ones doing beach recon for the Marines. Now I would not be surprised if parts of Force Recon (watch me I don't know much about Marine spec ops so stop me if I say something dumb) are trained in hydrographic reconnaisance, but it is still the SEALs that do a lot of that. It may be the sort of idea that the Marines want to be backed up by Marines (the same reasoning behind carriers deploying with all Marine squadrons of F-18's on board). Of course, spec ops missions that go public go public big and if the missions go off great then it is a huge publicity event for the unit that pulled it off, and the Marines may be wanting to jump on board for that as well. Either way, as the unit grows and becomes more established, it will be interesting to see what missions it takes on, where its focus tends to go, and what kind of turf wars take place (because it's almost guaranteed that there will be turf wars). Anyway, just some thoughts. Would like to see what some Marines think this unit's mission and focus might be, though. C

Got this through AOL news and thought it might be of general interest C

@DeltaDude Yeah and the M14 still is in limited use today. As it is, the SEALs actually had the M-16 (actually the civilian AR-15) before the Army was even considering using it. One of the first SEALs (Roy Boehm) went outside the regular Navy procurement procedures and bought about 50-100 of them on the civilian market before DoD had really approved them for military use. What I'm saying is, while the M-14 may have seen a bit of use in the Vietnam War, the SEALs (the focus of this mod I believe) didn't really use them much. That would be my best guess as to why HP might not include them. C

Without even realizing it one time, I was talking about shirts with my mom and referenced the slength leave! Those are a lovely collection of cattleships and bruisers.

You might be a redneck jedi if...

no, no, no. You are confused. We are searching because we have found none here. There is still hope that it might be elsewhere. C

To quote the great man of the south, Lewis Grizzard (who was once held prisoner of war up in Chicago for three years ): C

One thing that may help is to set a reasonable goal for yourself. It may be as simple as saying "In two months I want to be able to do 20 pushups at one time without stopping." When you hit a goal, expand upon it and keep working towards it. When I started doing pushups and stuff, I had the goal of doing 50 pushups at one time by one year from the start date. It took me a full year to get there (it was slow going), but I made it, and reaching that goal was a big motivator to keep going in and of itself. Another thing you may want to do is try to keep track of progress that you make. Seeing where you were and where you are now is also a huge motivator to keep going and see where you end up. The biggest thing, as it's been said by several already, is don't give up. Keep at it and you'll be surprised at what the outcome is. Now if you'll excuse me, I really should be doing some pushups before I go to bed. Good night to all. C One last thing, looking at your original post, right now one big thing you will want to focus on is getting the motion correct. Doing the excersize may be harder, but the results will be greater in the long run. Quality over quantity.

Evanescence made it back into my truck and gosh, Fallen is a great CD. Even if my mom doesn't much like it C

@Ruin: Platoon has William Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, and Tom Berenger in it IIRC. From what I heard it is supposed to be the most accurate movie at portraying what squad life was like, not necessarily combat. Of course I saw the movie a long time ago and the Vietnam war was ten years over before I ever started treading this earth, so I am not really able to do much commenting on the subject. C

I thought of this the other day, it may have been mentioned already, but anyway. One of the things that is set in the environment editor is the max spotting distance. As far as I understand, that is what determines how far the AI characters can actually see. On day maps it is usually equal to how far out you can see through the fog before it becomes too thick. But on night maps it is sometimes lower than the fog distance to account for the fact that it is dark and people can't see as well in the dark. Now here is the problem: it is my understanding that the max spotting distance is for all AI, enemy and friendly. This means that on some maps you could have very little fog, but other ghosts (who should have NV goggles) can't see more than 40 meters b/c that's how far the enemy can see and it wouldn't do to have guys without NV shooting you at 100 yards in the dark. The solution? Maybe have two spotting distance settings: one for night vision and one for without. Then part of the actor file could be the question NV yes or no. It would be assumed that all ghost actors would have NV and it could be set up where when the human player has NV on the ghosts do too and can see out to an appropriate distance (farther than the no-NV baddies). Other npc's could also have NV goggles, and then part of the scripting could determine whether or not that npc uses them. What this would do is allow the player to have more useful AI at night and not have them limited to being able to see no further than the enemies they are trying to kill. It would also better reflect the technological difference that exists between the US forces (and some of our allies) and much of the world. After all, we own the night C

In the truck I've got old-school Chevelle (Point #1, now talk about your mind numbing rock ) I've also been listening to Chevelle's Wonder What's Next and Evanescence's Fallen C PS at the moment on the comp I'm listening to Finch's song What it is to Burn.

Join the Army, meet interesting people, and then kill them. C

Hmmm.... let me meditate on it till I reach a state of altered.... Nirvana maybe? *sniff* *sniff* Smells like some nasty teen spirit in here. C

PITA? You wouldn't have happened to have read any of the books by Patrick Robinson would you? I have enjoyed every one by him that I've read, and that is the only place that I have seen that term used. Sorry, that was OT, and so I guess I will have to wait and see on the tanks, but it does seem strange nonetheless. Kudos to you if you have figured out how computer hackers can have tanks and make them fun C

Tanks!?! I thought these were computer hackers. Where did they get tanks from? C