So i decided to finally give in and start a blog on my adventures/travels/whathaveyou in Austria thus far. I've been here for almost exactly one month now. For those that don't know, West Point sends about four cadets a year to the Theresian Military Academy located in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. I was chosen for this in order to improve myself as a German major and to learn about the Austrian Army. My time abroad will last until about mid-december. I will take five classes that will count towards my credit hours at West Point. I'm not actually taking classes in the classroom yet, but I do have a "distance learning course" that requires me to write an essay each week in German. So far I've scraped by pounded out the essays with little to no bloodshed. As time goes by however, I find it easier and easier to write because my German skills are vastly improving.
Myself and three other cadets arrived in Vienna in late August and stayed there for two weeks. During this time we stayed at the Stiftskaserne that houses the Landesverteidigungsakademie: Sprachschule des Bundesheers. Basically, it's just a school where Austrian officers go to learn. And stuff... Here we were instructed by Hauptmann (Captain) Schiffl. We learned about the Austrian army, their ranks, Austrian history, and other interesting things. The LVAk was a great chance to get accustomed to the Austrian culture and figure out what the hell they were saying. For those that don't know, Austrian german is very different than german spoken in the northen parts of Germany, or Hochdeutsch. The Austrians use a lot of slang and say things differently. Their accent also gives familiar sounding words no meaning to me whatsoever... Just an example: instead of using an "ah" sounds for a's, they often use an "oh" sound. It sounds small, but imagine talking to a friend with peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth, and that's about the equivalent...but i digress.
During the second week in Vienna the group cadets went with Hpt. Schiffl into the Seetaleralpen in order to shoot some weapons with the Austrian Army. We shot the Sturmgewehr 77, the Pistole 80, and their version of the machine gun, sort of a mix between our 249 SAW and the 240. It was fun, but damn cold up in the mountains. Little would I know that the Seetaler would haunt me later. After this we went back to the LVAk and had a few more days of class. The following Friday we went to Wiener Neustadt with all of our stuff and found a room at the MilAk. We had the weekend free until Monday, so we went out exploring and found a good Kebab stand (one of the Turkish foods I love in Europe). On Friday and Saturday night we checked out the local bar scene in town. For a relatively small city, there were a good number of places. One of our favorites is Clumsy's, an irish/british bar (not really either) that serves good cheap beer. Cheap beer relative to all of the other cheap beer in Europe (beer costs less than coke).
Monday was the beginning of the training. We loaded up all of the required gear and got on to vehicles similar to our HUMVEE. The first phase of the training was at the verdammte Seetaler, where God seems to say, "nah, they don't need the sun today." Needless to say, it was rather cold. The Austrians also thought it would be fun to make me the assistant machine gunner in our squad, which consists of carrying two extra barrels, two boxes of ammunition, maintainence gear, an extra bolt, cleaning supplies, and a hot mit for when the barrel gets hot and you have to change it. traipsing around in the woods with all of this while being "tactical", aka, with facepaint, was tons of fun... But on a serious note, I did learn quite a lot during the first phase of the training and got to meet a lot of very nice guys and made a lot of friends. Also on one of the last days we had some free time and there was really nice weather up in the mountains. While eating some wurst and sunflower seeds, we watched the helicopters train up around the peaks. I can't wait to be a pilot...
The second week of training was held in Allentsteig, or Allentgrad as it is affectionately called by the Austrians. they said to prepare for cold, snowy conditions, and that Stalingrad..Allentsteig, rather, always had terrible weather. However, when we got there after the 8 hour drive the weather was not bad at all. It turns out that their academy has the same unofficial motto as ours: hurry up and wait. We would go somewhere and wait around for literally hours until told to do something else. The only real training during this last week was securing a fake town with no people in it. We also did a lot of pulling security, which entails lying in the prone position looking out for would-be attackers. Their army also does crowd and riot control, which is a royal pain in the ass. Fortunately, we only did training for this the week before, and no actual CRC in Allentsteig. I would say we did a good 5 hours of actual training there. I would always joke to our driver Lindy (last name Lindenburg), "Hey Lindy, what are we doing now?" to which he would reply, "Waiting again." To emphasize my point: On the last day of the training, some others from my platoon went out to secure a site. My squad stayed behind at the enemy base camp to make sure nothing happened. We stood/sat/napped for 7 hours until one clock in the afternoon. It was cold and wet in the morning, but it eventually warmed up to make for very good napping conditions. After this we drove out to the secured location and they called an end to the exercise. In the evening, we finally got to shower after 4 days of no shower and the platoon leader bought everyone beers. Not a bad time all-in-all. I got to learn a lot of German and met a lot of great people.
As I write this I'm on the railjet train to Munich, where the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest is currently being held.We'll see how that ends up... The Austrian verison of graduation week starts this Monday, so yet another week with no classes. lucky me! Sorry to all my West Point friends that have had classes for over a month now. Goodbye for now, and I hope to make another post after this weekend of assured chaos.
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