Monterey, California had the kind of charm that draws you in and envelops you with its simplicity and beauty. It was also home to the Defense Language Institute on the Presidio of Monterey, an old Spanish coastal fort. Nestled between the hills of the Big Sur country, the farmlands of Salinas, and the dense forests of Carmel, Monterey draws thousands of visitors a year to see Fisherman's Wharf and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. While beautiful, it provided almost too much contrast to our lives within the Army. We were all fairly bright guys and girls.
Military intelligence is peppered with graduates of top colleges from around the country.
To be qualified to study Arabic you had to prove that you were no intellectual slouch by taking a language proficiency examination. A few idiots always seemed to make it through, of course, but most were quite sharp. Nobody really fit the stereotype of a meat-headed monster champing at the bit for the chance to kill. As we started our morning routes, sometimes I started off with other people, but we invariably separated into our skill groups. The faster runners, like myself, never wanted to be seen finishing with the slower, fatter guys.