Eric Bernau

So as I'm sure you all saw Army did not win the Army-Navy football game this year which is pretty disappointing because that makes my class the first class in the history of West Point to have never seen us defeat either Navy or Air Force in our four years at the Academy.  The team still played really well and were winning going into halftime.  It was a really great time and we got some pretty good pictures and videos that I'll post later.  Right now we all have to start studying for Finals so I don't have much time to post on this blog this week.  Constitutional and Military Law this afternoon, here we go...

A quick picture though of me and Kyra with Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Army sideline at the game:

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So believe it or not, apparently that old phrase, "practice makes perfect," is actually onto something.  I'm not really sure if Navy actually practices their march-on, but from what it looks like year after year, they don't...

In order to repeatedly destroy Navy at marching like we're going to do again this year we do a couple days of practice with the entire Corps down at Shea stadium and I selflessly stepped out briefly to film what that practice looked like and you can check it out right here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmtF8nJH6I0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ49AUlH6PQ

And here is the Corps favorite Spirit video this year, a parody of the recent movie "Zombieland""

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5R0gqpcX3A

Lastly, a few members of the old Corps wanted to give their take on the outcome of the game this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfNAS8KUxz0

Go Army, Beat Navy!!!

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Last Sunday we had our annual Army-Navy briefing/pep rally that kicked off our Navy week this year.  We had briefings from the First Captain, Brigade Tactical Officer, Commandant, Football team coach, and others.  The Corps was pretty excited about all the activities going on this week around West Point and this weekend in Philadelphia.

However, before any of the briefings happened we had to take care of some more serious matters...hot dog eating and pull-up competitions!  Each Regiment, 4 in total, had a cadet representing them trying to eat as many hot dogs as they could in 2 minutes, followed by doing as many pull-ups as they could.  The winning Regiment got out of WAMI (Wednesday AM (room) inspection) for the first two weeks next semester so they were pretty pumped for that.

There was also a part where a Zepplin-like mini-blimp flew around the auditorium dropping ping pong balls cadets with chances to win a new car.  Needless to say, cadets were pretty eager to get one of those balls.

We watched a lot of Spirit videos in between speakers and there were some pretty funny ones this year.  Look on youtube and I'm sure you can find all the videos from this year and years past.

Everyone left the auditorium looking forward to all the events of the week (maybe not the march-on practice so much...) and heading to Philadelphia on Friday to watch Army crush Navy on Saturday and get invited to a bowl game.  There have been some pretty good cadet rumors about what will happen if we get a bowl game, my favorite being that the Dean will cancel classes, but honestly I'm not exactly holding my breath...

I didn't have a nice camera down at the briefing, but I was able to take a few pictures with my iPhone:

Cadets eager to win a new car

hot dog eating contest, I hope they weren't natural casing...

pull-ups on a full stomach?  Always a good decision...

Cadet Command Sergeant Major briefing the proper wearing of the uniform as the First Captain looks on

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I guess this is the part where I introduce myself...

Confession: I've actually never kept a blog before, this is genuinely my first time publishing my thoughts to the world wide web, so we'll see how it goes.

My name is Eric Bernau and I'm currently in my fourth, and final, year at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY.  This year I am serving as the Brigade Public Affairs Officer and having an absolute blast doing it.  My job is basically to personally, and find other cadets to, speak with the media, celebrities, public figures, and basically deal with anything external that comes to West Point and anything internal that leaves West Point in terms of media and relations.  It's a pretty legit job, but I actually think Public Affairs Officer isn't a very "sexy" title, so I've begun the process of changing my title to Brigade Propaganda Minister, which I think flows off the tongue a lot better and just sounds so much cooler...

I'm originally from Rochester, MN and never actually left the tri-state area (Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin) more than a few times before I left for the East Coast to begin my West Point experience back in the summer of 2006.  I've basically been spending the past few years making up for lost travel time by exploring New England on my weekends and traveling to Belize, Honduras, Korea, the Air Force Academy, and taking 3 trips to China (one of which was a semester abroad).  As one could probably guess, my major here at the Academy is Chinese and I love it.  Languages and culture have always facinated me and China is so different from America I just can't learn enough about it to satiate (my favorite word) myself.  Another reason I love my major?  My title in Chinese is xuan chuan bu zhang which translates back to Propaganda Minister, how perfect is that?

Anyways, I'll be covering Navy week here at the Academy as we prepare ourselves to beat our rivals in Philadelphia this Saturday so hopefully everyone can follow along and experience it along with me!

Talk to you soon, Eric

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