USNA Re-visited, December 10th, 2010

I felt compelled this evening to write a few words about a small institution located on the Severn River in Maryland. It's an intense love-hate relationship we have but I'm glad to say that finally it's morphed into more love than hate which I assume is sign of growth on my part. As for Mother B, she's been there, staid, silent never judging just waiting for her children to come home and be appreciative. If nothing else, she's waiting for us simply to come home and recognize it as such. Like most parents, we never really realize the sacrifice or payments made on our behalf from their bank accounts per se but after my recent trip, they seem much more apparent. She's ever the symbol of both division and unity, freedom and imprisonment, laughter and tears. Lacking anything else, Ms. Bancroft is a symbol (now) of my transition from childhood to the great big world at large. If you haven't lived it, apologies but you wouldn't understand. In truth you've lived your own but it has a different flavor. It was entirely fitting that on the evening I chose to stroll the grounds of my hallowed alma mater, there was a wind chill of 7 degrees. Cold but clear. Cutting through you but joyful at the opprtunity to say hi to a long lost friend. They were 4 years of my life spent in survival mode as we marched, mustered, shined shoes, folded towels, memorized rates and shouted chowcalls (ok, that was only the first year). It builds so much resentment that only the most gifted are fortunate enough to be able to escape to VGEP or some varsity sport. They have little realization for the rest who muddle their way through practice parades, feet frying in corframs, struggling through yet another round of O-course (which is no longer there I might add) and mandatory meals with people you simply don't like. It's the days of fries, "weekends", OBSTCR, outers and inners, tours, wires and cables, football in the old Meadowlands and falling asleep in the middle of a football roaring stadium because you simply hadn't slept in 8 or 9 days. While I was there, I never really fit in and felt like the outsider trying to mingle with the "rich kids" but that's really a bunch of crap. When you don the winter blues, the huge wool coat reeking of dry cleaner fluid or the reg PT gear with socks pulled up (and what WERE those shoes they issued us in '88??) really we have all just been equalized. We all smell like Coast soap and gabardine summer whites and shoe polish. In fact to this day I can't smell Coast soap without being absolutely catapulted back to summer 1988 with the east coast heat wave, lunch in King Hall and holding M4 rifles and present arms up on the deserted 7-4 corridors (unbeknownst to our superiors). They pushed the message down our throat that we were special but it wasn't in the way that they thought. We weren't special to the Fleet but special to each other. Up until recently, it was rare that I even admitted to attending this small college. I stopped wearing my ring as soon as my diploma was in hand and haven't worn it since unless it was to put it on to make sure I wasn't getting fat. Seriously. But in reality it is such a special place that it's hard to find words to describe it. I am reminded daily when I work with my boss who is an '83 grad. Salt of the earth. I spent two years on a Carrier Air Wing Staff with two other '92 grads and thought the world of them. As I read the alumni magazine, I see all the names of '92 grads who are now accepting the mantle of command and I'm proud of my class mates who have not only completed their service but excelled enough to be trusted to lead their charges. I knew you when... We truly are special but not because we're better and that's always been the sticking point for me. We're not better and too many have thought they were. It's a specialty that derives from family and shared experience. Like siblings who despise their parents, it's a bond. My company graduated a fraction of those with whom we started. Many fell out along the way but those who graduated survived, the elite members of '92 from the Herd and 4th company, and to this day, that makes them family to me. Good days and bad days from Plebe to Firstie, finals and June week, Plebe Chemistry and the plunge off the 10 meter tower, we were all there together. And as my boss likes to say, there's nothing like training leaders of tomorrow by mandating them to carry rain gear today. You know what I mean. :) Frankly I could have done without that D*@H^bag second class when we were plebes (you know him, the bald-guy Marine wanna be?) but as I bring back repressed memories from Plebe year, summer cruise, silent walks down Main Street, squeezing through Gate 3 after taps, and the quiet moments stolen while sitting on the ledge of 8-4 with a cigar, it makes me grateful for the chance to be a part of something incredibly honorable in both it's intent and execution. Moreover, I have people in my life that no matter how far we get apart we are still close and can talk over dinner after 8 years of separation like we saw each other last week. Thanks to Mother B. I didn't like you but at least now I respect you.