The Life and Times of Warren Hansen

I got my mission call this week! I’ll be serving in the Salta, Argentina mission speaking Spanish. I have a week of online MTC starting August 21 then go to the Mexico City MTC for 5 weeks before finally making it to Salta, located in the northwest point of Argentina, bordering Chile, Bolivia, and Paraguay. Between now and then, I have to make it through another month of school, 6 weeks of training this summer, and totally out-processing from West Point and the army. Opening my mission call on Zoom so my parents could be with me. My mom was visiting my Grandma, so she got to join in. And Jane was working a late […]

The Norwegian Foot March started as a way to test the Norwegian Army’s readiness during World War 1; completing it now earns you a badge to wear on your dress uniform. The march happens overnight and has competitors covering 30 kilometers (around 18.8 miles) while carrying an 11-kilogram (25-pound) backpack in under 4.5 hours. The average pace per mile needed to meet the time requirement is 14 minutes and 30 seconds per mile. The course at West Point is a hilly 6-mile loop that is done 3 times. My roommates and I started on Friday night at 8:34 with around 35 pounds each (35 pounds is the standard weight for most US Army tests so […]

This week I had the fun experience of learning how Emergency Leave works. I found out last weekend that my grandfather had died from esophageal cancer. The bureaucratic machine that is the army went into motion to get me home for his funeral. On Monday, my mom talked to the Red Cross who helps verify the death for the army. From there, the Red Cross talked to West Point to initiate the paperwork process to get me excused from classes and weekend training. That evening, I spent several hours working with some of the cadets in my company on the “Exception to Policy” paperwork that would need to get signed off by a couple of […]

Getting my wisdom teeth taken out has been the biggest thing I’ve had to line up for my mission papers. Fortunately, one of the dentists here is also the elder’s quorum president in the family ward, so I was able to work with him. First thing last Monday, I went in and got numbed up, then he came in and pulled them out. Because I had waited so long to do it, it was super easy and they just came right out. After that, I missed classes on Monday and Tuesday then went back Wednesday. Most of the medical stuff here is pretty convenient for cadet use. There is a general practice/dental/pharmacy building right next […]

This past week was Spring Break. The upper three classes got to leave on Friday after their last class, but the Plebes have 2 days to show their family around campus and have a formal banquet. My parents came with my older sister who just got back from her mission. It was fun to show them around and spend time together in the middle of the semester. For Spring Break, I decided to be a nerd and go on a trip to South Carolina with the History Department. We visited Civil War and Reconstruction Era locations in Charleston and Beaufort. We were hosted there by a retired 3-star general and his West Point classmate from […]

The past couple of weeks haven’t been too exciting so I’ll share what an average week looks like. The average day goes as follows: After classes finish, the rest of the day is yours to work out and do homework. About every other week, Wednesday is a Study Day, which just means classes don’t happen. It’s supposed to counteract the intense workload, but the joke is that Study Days miraculously get filled with random online training and meetings that you didn’t find out about until the night before. Weekends are normally free when it’s not football season, but occasionally there will be a study hall on Saturday mornings for Plebes and people with below a […]

At West Point, you take shockingly few classes solely directed toward your major, only around 10 classes or so out of around 40. This week the Plebes(freshmen) got to declare their majors. In a total reverse from what I have been saying for years(Mechanical Engineering), I declared as a Military History Major. I’ve fallen in love with the History Department here. During my history class last semester, History of the Army, we got to handle actual weapons from both world wars, talk about revolutionary war events while looking up the Hudson River to where they happened, and “wargame” major battles throughout history. The History Department also offers fantastic trips over Spring break and during the […]

A big thing at West Point is the idea of your “47-month experience.” This takes place from when you show up in June until you graduate in May, 4 years later. At significant milestones, someone always mentions how many months are left. Of course, for the LDS cadets who leave on missions for 2 years, this number is totally insignificant so we joke about the 71-month experience. This week I started my mission papers .(Yah! More paperwork) On Saturday, we were able to go to the Hartford, Connecticut Temple to support a young woman from the YSA branch as she received her Endowment. It was a great experience for everyone involved. I was the Cadet […]

The first week of each semester at West Point consists of attending meetings and preparing your room for SAMI(Saturday Morning Inspection). There is a 50-page packet that describes exactly how everything in your room needs to be laid out. Preparation includes taping gloves and pieces of parade uniforms into place in drawers,folding shirts into perfect 8-inch squares, buttoning every single button on and inside jackets, making beds with duct tape, and dusting every nook and cranny to the extent that a white glove can’t find dust on even the most obscure surface. Due to timing, the inspection actually took place on Monday(MAMI?) then we had classes starting on Tuesday. My credit load this semester is […]

Christmas dinner was on Thursday, and it is packed full of traditions. The Plebes(freshmen) decorate the tables and get cigars for everyone else. The entire Corps shows up in “Full Dress,” eats a little bit of food, stands on the chairs to sing “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” then goes outside to smoke cigars. The day of the Army/Navy football game is the single most important day in West Point Culture. The game happened on Saturday. I elected to take a bus with several hundred other cadets to and from the game (affectionately called The Boomerang Buses), but a lot of people get hotels and stay near the game. I woke up at 4:10 to […]