Presidio of Monterey

Home of the Defense Language Institute, a.k.a. the best duty station the Army accidentally created and has been trying to figure out how to ruin ever since. You're studying one of the hardest language programs on earth — Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Farsi — in a place where the ocean is your commute view, Carmel-by-the-Sea is your weekend destination, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium is your Tuesday activity. Big Sur is RIGHT THERE, one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline in the world, with cliffs and redwoods that look like a dream you're afraid to wake up from. The seafood is incredible — clam chowder in sourdough bowls on Fisherman's Wharf, fresh Dungeness crab, and abalone if you're fancy. Every soldier at every other base in the entire Army hates you and they are completely right to. The only suffering here is conjugating Mandarin verb tenses at 0600 and trying to memorize 500 Arabic flashcards while the sunset over the Pacific distracts you with its beauty. You will never be stationed anywhere this nice again. The DLI grads who PCS to Fort Meade or Fort Liberty experience a grief that language school did not prepare them to articulate in any language.