Hello world,

I’m back and ready as ever for the upcoming school year. But before I tell you what I’m going to do in the upcoming year, I need to tell you what I did this summer.

When I think of summer 2016, I think of cadet camp. No, this isn’t your stereotypical summer camp. This is hard boiled, dust ridden, militaristic, boot camp. It’s three weeks up in scorching hot Vernon and no you’re not allowed to wear shorts.

When you go to Vernon for cadet camp you can pick a plethora of courses

(12-13yrs) General Training-2 weeks-This is where you do a little bit of everything offered at Vernon to help you pick what camp you want to do next year.

(13-14yrs) Basic Training-3 weeks-When you go into basic you can pick what sub categorie you want to study. At Vernon, I took Basic Marksmanship but they also offer other courses like Basic Drill and Leadership, Basic Military Band, Basic Sports and Fitness, Basic Expodition, and for air cadets Basic Survival.

(14-15yrs) Instructor Training-6 weeks-Instructor training is pretty self explanatory. It’s where you are taught to teach one of the basic  courses listed above.

(15-19yrs) Staffing-8 weeks-This is not so much a  course as it is a job. Being a staff means that you teach one of the courses listed above or help out in Vernon Head Quarters.

This was my second summer going to camp. I chose to take Basic Marksmanship. When you take Basic Marksmanship you don’t camp on Vernon Military Base like the rest of the camps, you camp up in D-lines by the shooting ranges so it takes less time to march there every day.

You also don’t get the luxury of sleeping in a barracks, on D-lines you have to sleep in tents for three weeks. With all this discomfort, I still thought it was the greatest camp ever.

While I was there, they helped me improve my shooting skills. We had a few competitions in which I consistently placed second.

It was such a good camp and I highly recommend going to it.