History
Berntsen grew up in Smithtown, Long Island, a suburb of New York City. When Berntsen was seventeen, he tried to join the United States Army but his parents would not sign the enlistment contract. He waited until his eighteenth birthday when he decided to enlist in the Air Force. Berntsen served for four years as a Crash Firefighter in the Air Force, including tours in Alaska and Korea. During his time in the United States Air Force he became obsessed with educating himself, which he did by reading biographies and enrolling in the Air Force's self-study program, acing several courses. Berntsen also spent much of his time in the gym or skydiving. After Berntsen's time as a firefighter he became a full-time college student where he majored in Political Science and minored in Russian Studies. He attended the U.S. Marine Corps Platoon Leader Class for two summers. However, before he was commissioned in the Marine Corps, he was recruited into the CIA.
Read more about this topic: Gary Berntsen
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The whole history of civilisation is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)