Speaking at Virginia Tech to the Corps of Cadets

And I got to meet Homer Hickam to boot

Thomas PM Barnett

Mar 29, 2024

1200 cadets and maybe 200 more attendees

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Great day at Virginia Tech.

Started with office call with the commandant MGen Randy Fullhart (USAF, ret) and then a tour of the facilities with him.
Next onto a classroom setting where I spent an hour plus answering questions and dialoguing with a select group of cadets and their professors.
Then another tour with three of those top cadets, all of whom blew me away with the higher-order questions they posed during our discussion.
Then about a one-hour presentation in front of the student body and guests, where Homer Hickam of “Rocket Boys”/“October Skies” fame decided to sit in after just being inducted into the Corps’ alumni hall of fame. We got to chat for about 10 minutes, which was very cool.

No, I don’t ask for pictures with people, even as I am glad to give them as I did here.

Then about 30 minutes of Q&A with the total audience still in attendance.
Then another 30 informally with students who didn’t get a chance to pose their questions.
Then off to a dinner with the commandant, senior professors, and another select group of cadets, with maybe another hour of Q&A.
And then I was spent and decided to write this post right away because I am flying out of Roanoke VERY early Friday morning.

It was a well structured series of events where the Corps got their money’s worth with fours hours of talking.

I have to say, I found the cadets very impressive individually. Great questions throughout and just this nice sense of career urgency that you like to see in young people.

It was, as they say, an honor and a privilege.