Introduction.
There is no way with three pages that I can tell what happened during my four years at the US Naval Academy. This is the 10th story in a series entitled “Dad, Rob and Me”. Rob died about 20 months before Plebe Summer so now it was just Dad and Me. Had it not been for my father, I would never have gone to the Naval Academy in the first place, and had I gone, I would not have stayed. I did not stay because he pressured me to do so. He gave me permission to quit if there was something that I would prefer to do. I stayed, in part, because Dad told me something that I had never heard from him before; he told me that he believed in me. He said that he knew that if I made up my mind that I wanted to graduate from Annapolis, that he was confident that I could and would do it. That and a strong desire to make my father, a man for whom I had so much respect, proud of me, carried me through the many doubts and dark moments I had at the Academy.
When I actually did graduate, Dad was more proud of me than I had expected. So much so that I concluded that he really hadn’t believed I could do it and was more surprised than me when I did. I never challenged Dad on that, so no way to know for sure. What I do know is that it was the right decision for me to go there and it was the right decision for me to finish. So thank you Dad for what you did.
Main Characters. Dad (his late 40’s) and Me (17-21);
Approximate dates: 1970-1974
I ended the last story with “Induction Day”, which was the first official day for incoming midshipmen at the US Naval Academy. When I turned in for bed that first night in Bancroft Hall, on one hand I was shell shocked and traumatized. I was physically and emotionally exhausted. My arms ached from the pneumatic injections and carrying all the heavy stuff around. I didn’t know anyone. I had never been treated so rudely in my life and I felt like a very alone fish out of water. Almost every fiber in my being screamed, “Let’s go home!”. And yet, there was a certain sense of adventure. Lot of challenges and new experiences coming. I didn’t think they were going to maim or kill me so I might as well give it some time to see what the future held.
Let’s step back and look at the big picture here. The three US military academies: Air Force, USNA, and West Point are not colleges; they are trade schools. Their basic missions are the same: to prepare their graduates to effectively employ sophisticated weapons systems and to lead military personnel in defeating our nation’s adversaries in war. Nine out of ten applicants are culled on the front end. But of those who are accepted, at least a third fail or quit. We started with over 1,400 in our class and graduated 924. There are three basic categories for failure: academic, physical, and disciplinary. I would guess that less than half of those who don’t make it, wanted to make it but couldn’t pass those criteria. The other half or perhaps most who don’t finish, choose to quit. Some quit because they decide that there is something else they would prefer to do with their lives. Others quit because they determine that they don’t have what it takes to become a capable officer in the US military. They lack the confidence, the common sense, the presence of mind, the grit, the emotional stability, or other such intangibles that will enable them to land an F-14 on an aircraft carrier, negotiate an incoming torpedo, or lead men in combat. One of the main objectives of the freshman summer detail (“Plebe Summer” for us) is to identify those who lack these essential character qualities and convince them to quit.
Within the first couple of days, we went to an assembly in Mahan Hall where we were introduced to the Superintendent of the US Naval Academy: Vice Admiral James Calvert. He was the most impressive human being I had ever met. His nickname was appropriately “Lord Jim”. In his talk, he told us to each look at the fellow on our left and then at the one on our right. “One of you three is not going to make it. You need to decide which one of the three you are going to be.”
Well, I was not ready to make that decision yet. But if I did decide I wanted to graduate, I knew it was going to be very difficult for me to do so. I was not so worried about failing academically or physically – I was reasonably confident I could meet those minimums. But I knew I was naturally disorganized and lacked presence of mind and common sense. Dad certainly knew of my shortcomings. Even if I really wanted to, was it possible for me to adapt and change myself enough in those areas to pass muster? Or would the upperclassmen see I didn’t have what it took and run me out? I planned to discuss this with Mama and Dad when I was allowed to call home for the first time. Meanwhile, I would just endure.
The phone room was in the basement of Bancroft Hall. It was several weeks after we first got to Annapolis that we were allowed to call home and then for some allotted amount of time – say 3 or 5 minutes. I think I sent a letter home telling my parents when to expect my first call. It was becoming increasingly evident to me that I lacked the right wiring to be a midshipman – my mind had frequently frozen when I had been asked to “stop the music” or to quote Commodore JJ Tausig or to tell what was on the menu for the next meal. My parents knew how scatterbrained I was, and they would understand why this was just not a good fit for me. I dialed 601-888-6892 and after two rings, Mama picked up the phone and said “Hello”. I tried to say hello back but all I could get out was a croak. Mama realized it was me and began gently talking to me telling me how much she loved me and how difficult she knew it must be for me – but that I would be ok. Try as I may, I could not get words to come out – I could only whimper and cry. After a minute or two, I hung up the phone and handed it to the next guy in line.
There was so much activity – from before dawn until well after dark. Calisthenics, running, learning to march, chow calls, memorization, lectures, inspections, rifle range, pistol range, sailing, swimming, wrestling, boxing, etc. Our instructors for many of the activities were the Firsties – guys who had been where I was three years before. I was impressed. Every night before going to sleep I would reflect on how much I had experienced and learned just that day. It was exhausting yet stimulating.
It was a couple of weeks and several phone calls after the first one before I was able to have a phone call with Mama without crying and ask to speak to Dad. Dad came on the line. He simply said “Hello David. Tell me what is going on.” And so I started telling him what I knew he already knew – that I was such a f__k up, a douche bag, that I was just too drifty to ever be able to get my s__t together, etc. And so it was hopeless and I had to quit. I had expected Dad to tell me no you can’t quit, you have to stick it out, that I would disappoint him, etc. But that is not what he said. “David, if you knew that you could do it and do it well, would you want to graduate from Annapolis?” He said that there was one thing that he knew for sure about me and that was that when I set my mind to something and really wanted it, he had never known me to fail. He went on to say that if I decided that this was not something I wanted to do, that I really wanted to do something else, he would support me and be proud of me. I told him I would think about it and give it more time and then hung up.
Dad knew what military school and military life was like and he knew me with all my shortcomings. Yet he had said that he also knew for sure that if I decided I wanted to make it here, I could do it. Well, it was not like I had some other career path I wanted to follow at Mississippi State. I didn’t want to be a farmer, a merchant, or a lawyer. If I really could change enough that I would one day be like the Firsties or the company officer or most importantly, more like my father, would I want that? Yes. Absolutely. And I also knew that if I did this, Dad would be very proud of his one and only living son. And that was a huge motivation for me.
There were numerous procedures, protocols, and exercises that we had to learn and follow properly, or we would get reprimanded. Among the most dreaded for me was “Chow Call”. Beginning 10 minutes before each meal, plebes were assigned to different locations within our living quarters where they were to stand at attention and shout out a series of relevant information: the complete menu for the upcoming meal, the movies that were playing at the theaters in Annapolis, and the number of days until Navy Beat Army, Second Class Ring Dance and First Class Graduation. It was not overly difficult to commit this information to memory; what was so difficult for me was saying it with a Firstie snarling in my face. One Firstie, who was from New York, would really rattle me because of my accent. “Where Rrrr yoou frum, Boyie!” “Woodville, Mississippi, Sir!”. “You f__king hick. Learn to speak English”. Within a matter of weeks, I changed my accent. When I came home for Christmas vacation, nearly everyone commented that I talked like a damn Yankee. Survival. If I could change my accent, perhaps I could also rewire my screwy brain.
Plebe Summer culminates with Parents Weekend. This is a photo that was in the Woodville Republican.
Mama and Dad, my two sisters and my grandmother, Nora all came. We plebes put on as much pomp and ceremony as our 2 months of training would allow. The highlight was our marching in “perfect” formation to, on, and from the Parade Ground. They were quite proud of me, and I was too.
The most interesting part of a midshipman’s life happens during the summer months. You only get a four-week vacation home. The rest of the summer is spent out with the real Navy. Youngster Cruise, for example, follows the completion of Plebe Year. The 1,100 of us that made it that far were assigned to one of four amphibious ships. The two from Norfolk took 550 former plebes and now youngsters to Europe. The amphibs from San Diego took the other half to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. We lived in enlisted men’s quarters and did enlisted men’s duties.
The photo on the left is life on the USS Duluth (LPD-6) and the one on the right is of me snow skiing in July 1971 in the Snowy Mountains southeast of Canberra, Australia.
It was mindboggling how much I had experienced and changed in 13 months. By then, I had decided that I really did want to graduate from Annapolis, that I wanted to be a naval officer, at least for a while, and I trusted that the Naval Academy would continue to transform me such that when the time came, I would be a good officer.
The Class of 1974 graduated on June 5th of that year. There are two photos here. One is of my 923 classmates and me chunking off our midshipmen hats. Just before the other photo was taken, Dad shook my hand and with tears in his eyes he said, “David, other than the day your mother married me, this is the best day of my life.” Really? I was pretty sure then that back during plebe summer, Dad never thought I would make it. But I did and it was all worth it.
Keep in mind, that this is a story in a series about my brother, my dad and me. I have left out the most valuable and significant aspect of going to the Naval Academy: the relationships that are developed with your classmates. My classmates included guys from every state in the Union as well as several foreign countries. They were among the smartest, fittest, and most competent students from their schools. And nearly all of them were there because they were patriots who wanted to serve our country.
There are 36 fraternities (companies) in each class. Thirty-eight of us began as the 29th Company and thirty-two of us graduated as members of the Third Company. We lived together in the same section of Bancroft Hall all four years. We came to know nearly everything there was to know about each other: families, girlfriends, cars, jokes, shortcomings, and strengths. With such familiarity, the shared misery and the many common experiences, we should have all been closer than brothers; except for one thing: the competition. We were always evaluated, graded, and ranked relative to each other. As a plebe in a squad containing five plebes, you were rated as one of five, two of five, three of five, etc. That is cruel and undermines friendships. Why would the Academy do that to its students? Because that is exactly how it is in the real Navy. And your relative ranking mattered. Service Selection Day comes in the fall of your senior year. Your relative standing determines your available choices for your career assignment. Navy Air, submarines, surface ships (and which ship), medical corps, etc. And once you are an officer, it determines your promotions.
I left the Navy after serving five years as a surface warfare officer (surface ships). My expectations were exceeded in the quality of my assignments, the destinations of my ships’ deployments, and of my overall performance as a naval officer. My Academy and Navy experience prepared me well for the rest of my life. I would guess that about a third of my Company Classmates stayed in for twenty years or more. Now, everyone has been out of the service for decades. There is no more competition. What we have now are the shared memories of by far the most formative and challenging years of each of our lives – which we shared together.
At the end of October, over 52 years after we first met, my Company Classmates who can make it, will join Coco and me in St. Francisville for three days to reminisce and catch up. I am so looking forward to it. Were he alive, don’t you know Dad would be pleased if he could be here for that.