honor code

Our Cadet Honor Code reads: "a cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do." It is no doubt an idealistic notion that we would abide completely by this, but I like to think that we do pretty well in our endeavors to live as honorable cadets. For those who violate the code, you can either admit to your wrongdoing and take the punishment, or there is an investigation and trial process to determine guilt or innocence and recommend punishment. Punishment has historically been separation (i.e. you get kicked out), but that has become the exception instead of the rule in recent years. The focus is shifting towards rehabilitation instead of punishment, although punishment is still handed out in the form of a 6 or 12 month delay in graduation. For the most part, I think the process is fair and carried out correctly, and there are of course some issues that could use some work, but the Honor Code is a good thing to have and goes a long way to instill a character trait that officers should have.

I thought that I might go all four years without being directly involved with or affected by the honor process, but it appears as if my time has run out. I shouldn't talk too much about details since the matter is under investigation and someone's life is definitely going to be affected by this, but the short of it is that I asked someone about their age because they were doing something that required them to be a certain age and a friend of mine told me that he wasn't that certain age, and he responded that he was that certain age. The next day, my friend talked to the someone about the situation and the someone is doing the right thing (in my opinion)- admitting his wrongdoing and turning himself in for the violation. Because he is admitting to the offense, there won't be a full-blown investigation and trial, but there will be a "cadet advisory board" that reviews the situation, fills out some paperwork, and recommends a punishment (if any).

words of encouragement from a mentor (part 2)

This time I have some actual words of encouragement from a mentor...

It's my constant endeavor to convey just what goes through the head of a cadet as they prepare to graduate. Relationships is one such thing, especially as many people are preparing to get married in the weeks following graduation and preceding their officer basic schools. Don't worry, I'm not going to make that mistake.

My friend/hero/mentor John wrote to me the other day some relationship-related stuff and it's pretty amazing I think: "Get a load of this. Amazing. I was typing and then thought I should just send you a short commentary that I read the other day. The only problem is I threw it in the trash. So I went out to the community trash barrel (huge about 3 cubic yards in size) in our alley to get it. I was hoping that the trash pick-up hadn’t occurred yet, but it did. I looked in the bottom of the barrel and there was a single sheet of paper. I thought maybe, just maybe that might be it. I climbed in to take a look. When I turned it over I was shocked. It was the article I was looking for. I’m really surprised. So…. it must be meant for me to forward it on to you. See the attachment."

You know you've got a good friend/hero/mentor when they go dumpster diving on your behalf! Here's the article that he sent to me. I like what Mr. Keating has to say in the second half of his writeup, because I do wonder about what my vocation in life is going to be (i.e. married, single, or religious) and I do tend to think in terms of the princess charming idea. The last two words bother me a little bit, because who in life wants to be "sufficiently happy," but in the context of the rest of the sentence/article it does make sense.

The Non-Existent Prince Charming by Karl Keating

When I was very young, like many my age I thought that liking and loving were the same thing, with the latter being an intense variant of the former. It was only as I grew that I learned that liking and loving, while similar and often coincident, are different.

The chief difference is in the will. Whether you like someone is pretty much outside your control. The person’s appearance, attitude, or affections may or may not appeal to you.

Nowhere in the New Testament is our Lord recorded as having old us to “like one another.” Instead he instructed us to “love one another” (Jn 13:34, 35; Jn 15:12, 17). In these verses he put this not as a recommendation but as an outright command: “I have a new commandment for you” (Jn 13:34); “this is my commandment” (Jn 15:17).

Liking is something that “just happens.” Loving is something we have control over. Liking is a spontaneous emotional reaction. Loving is an act of the will. You never will like everyone, but you can love anyone. It I theoretically possible in a way that liking everyone is not.

And this brings me to the topic of prospective spouses.

Catholic Answers hosts chastity talks by various speakers. Such talks are aimed at young audiences- high school and college students, chiefly- and, by necessity, the speakers themselves are fairly young.

Some speakers who have spoken for us, when first starting out, told their young audiences that somewhere out there was a Prince or Princess Charming, someone fated from all eternity to be a young person’s perfect match. The speakers said something like this: “save yourself for that one person that God has set aside just for you.”

When I learned about that statement, I told our speakers to cut it out- because it wasn’t true. It sounded romantic, and it sounded pious, but it wasn’t true. It left each young listener thinking that there was one and only one person whom he could have a happy marriage with and that if he waited long enough, God would arrange for the couple to meet.

That’s not how real life works. When I have a chance to speak to young people, I shock them by saying, “within easy driving distance, there are a hundred happy people whom you could marry and have an equally happy life with.” Of course, there are also a hundred or a thousand with whom they might be miserable.

This does not, of course, mean that every match is a good one or that every match is wisely entered into. But it does mean that fairly tales should be left to children.

It does no harm for a 10-year-old girl to dream of a Prince Charming, but half her life will be wasted if she still thinks, at 35, that she should wait for the appearance of a Prince Charming whom God has reserved for her and that she should let pass other prospects with whom, in fact, she could be sufficiently happy.

a milestone

Yes, just a little one, but another milestone nonetheless. Ah, who am I kidding? This milestone is pretty friggin awesome: I just finished my LAST ACADEMIC PAPER as a cadet. It was for Human Resource Management, plus tomorrow I am also handing in a paper for another class, Leading Organizations through change. So to model the "to do" list that a friend does on her blog, here is the stuff that I walked into this week with...

MG421- Strategic Management
strategic recommendation paper for General Dynamics
strategic briefing for General Dynamics- next Tuesday

LW403- Constitutional/Military Law
final exam

HI302- History of the Military Art
final exam

PL479- Leading Orgs. Through Change
term paper on the Cadet Honor Code
presentation on the Cadet Honor Code- tomorrow

MG382- Human Resource Management
term paper on Yuengling
presentation on Yuengling- tomorrow
final exam

MX400- Officership
nada

Almost there! 24 days!!

words of encouragement from a mentor (part 1)

I wrote to my old high school calculus teacher last week and was giving him an update on what I do right now. Here's part of what I told him, keep in mind that we both have rather sarcastic and self-deprecating and demeaning senses of humor, all at once. The necessary background story is that I was his student aide during my senior year of high school, which meant that we went to the library for 80 minutes every day, and he ate cake and chatted with other teachers while I did all his grading.

Me: "Your slave driving abilities have served me well this semester actually, as I am the slave for my cadet company right now. I'm the "administrative officer" and the company commander seems to think that means "gee, Gib can do all my [undesirable] work and paperwork that I don't really feel like doing." I have an assistant, but you know how good assistants are (unless it's me). Fortunately today is Administrative Professionals Day and everyone has brought me flowers and chocolates and wants to buy me drinks tonight for all the work I do for them. I guess it's always nice to dream..." (John, if you read this that's not what I actually think goes through your head)

He responded in his usual timely manner (a week later): "I knew you would end up a glorified secretary. You attend West Point and leave with the same job skills you have gotten completing an online secretarial correspondence course."

Gee thanks Mr. B.

He also claims to read my blog, so now I get to see if he actually does!

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE RELEASE NO. 21-10
PRESIDENT TO SPEAK AT WEST POINT GRADUATION – April 21, 2010

WEST POINT, N.Y. –The White House announced today the President of the United States, Barack Obama, will be the graduation speaker for the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 2010. The ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 22.

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Yep, so it's official: El Presidente is coming for our graduation commencement. It will no doubt be cool to receive my diploma from the Commander in Chief, I'm pretty excited about it. I know there are some who would say stuff about how could I be excited about this "liberal whacko" or whatever you wanna call him, but I could give 2 shits about his politics because he's the boss and it's not my place to question his authority. Maybe that attitude is a cop-out but it just keeps my job simpler.

Now I am certainly excited but there are two things that don't excite me as much. First of all, security and what-not will be a nightmare on that day and a huge headache for my family as they try and get into the stadium. And the second thing is that my friend Sarah is having Arnold Schwarzenegger at her commencement, which would possibly be the greatest thing ever, so I'm a little jealous of her! But I suppose the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, will do :)

General Marshall

I had to write a paper about the life and life lessons of an Army general, and I chose General George Marshall whose Army career culminated as Chief of Staff of the Army during World War 2. I wanted to read about him because I have read some stuff about him while reading about Dwight Eisenhower, and my strategic management teacher calls Marshall the greatest strategic leader of the 20th century (military, business, or otherwise). So the book that I picked up is called George Marshall: Education of a General and I have to say that I didn't really look at it closely when I bought it off Amazon because it only covers his life up until 1939, which is precisely when my time period of interest starts. It was a decent book though, and tells all about his rise to 'power' in Washington as the 4 star general (and later 5 start) that managed the US Army in both the Pacific and European theaters. He was also the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense after retiring, and is most notably know perhaps for the Marshall Plan, which was the US strategy in rebuilding Europe.

Here's the end of my paper, where I stop writing about the book itself and focus instead on what really matters: why do I care about this "old dead general?"

I do not wish to provide any more overview or summary of General Marshall’s life or career, but rather to point out some of the things that I feel are relevant to my career and important for me to remember as I graduate and get commissioned. One of the first lessons that came to me is to stay in contact with higher-ranking officers from different points in your career. Throughout his time in the army, Marshall wrote to Superintendant Nichols of VMI, General Pershing, and a host of others. Good officers care about the development and advancement of their subordinates, and Marshall was not afraid to lean on that source of assistance when it became necessary to get something done. Use the connections you have when it is appropriate, and always keep in contact with your superiors, peers, and subordinates because you never know when they might be of help to you.

I have always been of the school of thought that my actions and merit should alone determine my promotions and recognitions. I am not comfortable using “connections” to get things that I want especially when it comes to positions. For the longest portion of Pogue’s book, he told the story of an officer who was content in taking the assignments and promotions given to him without ever making much of a fuss or asking for friends in high places to help him out. But the second big takeaway I have from reading about General Marshall is that a high-flying career can only go so far on merit alone. At some point the adage that “it’s not who you are but who you know” becomes true and you have to lean on your connections to make it higher on the rank ladder. Marshall might not have climbed as far on the ladder as he did had it not been for the friendship with and influence by General Pershing, who had considerable political weight in Washington that he threw around on behalf of his protégé. It pains me to say it and I am still not one hundred percent convinced that it is true, but in reading this book and others, it appears as if at some point in the career of an officer is less about what he has done and more about the friends he has in high places. So for me, if I stay in for any long period of time and wish to aspire to the ranks of the general officers (which is about as likely as pigs flying), I have to not only have a stellar career but I also have to spend time pressing flesh and working rooms when in the presence of people who have potential say in matters of promotions and staffing within the army.

The last thing that I take from the life of George Marshall, and a similar idea that I have taken from the life of Dwight Eisenhower, is that service to the nation does not end once you hang up the uniform. Marshall went almost immediately to serve as the Secretary of State, where he of course has considerable influence on the rebuilding of post-World War II Europe, the infamous Marshall Plan is of course credited to his name (nobelprize.org). One could say: once a public servant, always a public servant.

So is this a man that I would like to model my own life after? Absolutely, and I would like to think that I could even just begin to emulate George Marshall and all that he did for our nation. He was a dedicated soldier, a hard-working servant of the nation who did his time in the seldom-desired positions in the Army and was appropriately rewarded for his skill and hard work. The one thing I do worry about in studying men like Marshall, and this is a topic for an entire paper in itself, is whether or not he had a proper life outside of the military. He was married twice (his first wife died and then he remarried) and I do not get the feeling that he was able to pay appropriate attention to his role as husband and step-father. I suppose it is a question of goals and desires. Marshall clearly wanted to rise to the top and was prepared to sacrifice much of his life for that desire, but I am not that I share that desire.

rules for sending our troops to war

Another excerpt out of my book Supreme Command (which I can't believe I haven't finished yet, schoolwork has seriously slowed my reading pace lately). This was written by SecDef Caspar Weinberger in 1984 and it is 6 principles for the use of our armed forces and was for awhile the normal theory of civil-military relations:

1) The United States should not commit forces to combat overseas unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest.
2) If we decide it is necessary to put our combat troops into a given situation, we should do so wholeheartedly and with the clear intention of winning. If we are unwilling to commit the forces or resources necessary to achieve our objectives, we should no commit them at all.
3) If we do decide to commit forces to combat overseas, we should have clearly defined political and military objectives. And we should know precisely how our forces can accomplish those clearly defined objectives. And we should have and send the forces needed to do just that. As Clausewitz wrote, "No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war, and how he intends to conduct it"
4) The relationship between our objectives and the forces we have committed - their size, composition, and disposition - must be continually reassessed and adjusted if necessary. Conditions and objectives invariably change during the course of a conflict. When they do change, then our combat requirements must also change. We must continuously keep as a beacon light before us the basic question: "Is this conflict in our national interest?" "Does our national interest require us to fight, to use force of arms?" If the answers are "yes," then we must win. If the answers are "no," then we should no be in combat.
5) Before the United States commits combat forces abroad, there must be some reasonable assurance we will have the support of the American people and their elected representatives in Congress.
6) The commitment of US forces to combat should be a last resort.

Can you see where the motivation for this doctrine came from? I'd say it was very much influenced from the last major conflict that the US was involved in at this point in time: Vietnam.

Does this doctrine survive at all in the present day? Was it ever really put into practice? I'd say that we came pretty close with the 1st Gulf War. Overall, the author calls these six points an "impossible standard of purity" but they are "an ideal to which succeeding political and military leaders pledged allegiance."

They all sound pretty good to me. There was some criticism from George Shultz, who hated to see "America's hands tied by a reduction of strategy to rules of thumb," but I would say that these principles should be at the center of decision makers' thoughts when considering committing our armed forces to war.

LT Cunningham

Cadet Tim Cunningham was my first semester, plebe year platoon leader, and from the day that I reported to him I knew that this was a special guy. He became one of my heroes and he has always been a source of inspiration to me as a leader. He embodied what has become my #1 leadership tenet: compassion. Here's a picture of him, the platoon sergeant Brando Whitten, and the plebes from our platoon at Christmas dinner (he is 2nd from the right):

Tim was also a great family man, he was married soon after graduation to his high school sweetheart Samantha and not too long after that their family came to include their daughter Abigail. Here they are all together:


Lieutenant Cunningham's first assignment, after attending the Infantry Officer Basic Course and Ranger school, was with the 101st Airborne at Fort Campbell, Kentucky and he deployed to Iraq with his platoon in the fall of 2007. I sent him a message at one point and one of the questions I asked was what sort of challenges he faced. He responded: "The challenges vary. As far as the technical aspects, not too many challenges. Those are not too difficult to get your arms around. Mostly, if there are people challenges, and the personalities conflict, that will frustrate everything you do, and make it a pain to live/ work in the environment so close to that/ those persons. That, in general is my biggest challenge. " I know that he made the best of his deployment, and that he did well to those he encountered. This picture is just one shred of evidence to that fact:

I remember a Friday two years ago when I was working in Phoenix, my friend Michelle at West Point called on the phone. She said, "Gib, LT Cunningham died in Iraq the other day." The worst part is that he didn't get killed by enemy fire, an IED, or anything like that, but when his vehicle rolled over into a canal. One other soldier, PFC John Bishop, was also killed in the accident. He's been on my mind ever since that day, and I wear a bracelet that reads "1LT Timothy Cunningham '06, 101st AA KIA 23 April 2008 Iraq" The world became a lesser place the day that he left us, but I know with 100% certainty that he is in heaven looking down on us all.

So today it has been 2 years since he was killed in action. I ask that you pray for Tim and for Sam and Abby too.

sick

I've been sick the past few days and unmotivated to post anything. I hope to jump back on the horse tomorrow, especially since I only have one hour of class the whole day! Peace.

a milestone

It's a small one, but it's a milestone nonetheless: I just took my last WPR as a cadet! WPR stands for written partial review and is just the 'fancy' term for a test. I still have three finals to take in a few weeks (wouldn't you know that there is a 'fancy' name for finals too? TEE: term end exam), but this was the last regular test.

The test was in strategic management and covered cooperative strategy, corporate level strategy, mergers and acquisitions, international strategy, corporate governance, strategic entrepreneurship, and strategic leadership. We studied Proctor & Gamble's acquisition of Gillette, Mondavi wines, and Enron as case studies for those lessons. In case you were wondering what sort of questions come on a strategic management WPR, here you go:

1. The author of the Enron case asserts that Enron’s strategic leaders were able to violate “fairly straightforward accounting rules” for an extended period of time. Use information from the case and theoretical concepts of corporate governance and strategic leadership to discuss why the Enron board did not react effectively to this case of managerial opportunism.

2. According to the Mondavi case, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of Mondavi’s domestic wine industry would be significantly different from a SWOT analysis of Mondavi’s global wine industry. Using information from the case, discuss how considerations of international strategy would differ from considerations of domestic strategy for Mondavi Wine.

3. Assume that you are a strategic consultant with the task of assisting P&G with its projected acquisition of Gillette. Your specific task is to develop a rationale for the premium that P&G will offer for Gillette stock. Use information from the case and theoretical concepts from the chapters on corporate-level strategy and mergers/acquisitions to develop your rationale.

4. Assume that you are a strategic consultant with the task of assisting P&G with its projected acquisition of Gillette. Your specific task is to use information from the case to identify and discuss all significant stakeholders and their likely position on the acquisition of Gillette.

General McKiernan on leadership

Monday, this man was here to talk to the cadets enrolled in MX400: Officership. This guy is General (retired) David McKiernan who was in the news most recently for being fired. Yeah, not usually the way that a four-star general likes to go out. It wasn't as if he did terrible things (he definitely didn't), but when President Obama took office he wanted some fresh blood in charge of the coalition in Afghanistan, and he turned to Gen. Stan McCrystal (who in my opinion has been doing a fabulous job by the way). General McKiernan has had a very distinguished career and has commanded at every level in the army, so it was an honor and privilege to hear him speak. It's always interesting to hear different peoples' leadership philosophies, so I'll share with you some of the things he told us and my reactions.

He started by saying that "leadership is not rocket science" which was interesting I thought. So much of what we do here is trying to figure out how to be the best possible leader, but it would seem as if maybe it isn't all that hard. You really only need to have a few well-established and noble guiding principles to live by, and leadership should come somewhat naturally. Or so the argument can be made. General McKiernan's guiding principles are: competency, commitment, courage, candor, consistency, patience, listening, and empathy. I would say that his points were fairly unique; I'm not sure I've ever heard too many higher level leaders claim that empathy was one of their guiding principles. But General McKiernan did what I think all general officers do: he got up in front of us and said something along the lines of "now I can't completely define leadership or claim to have the answers for you and it's pointless to try" but then goes ahead and tells us a whole bunch of things that we should try and emulate about his own career. It certainly has merit and I'm not faulting him for it, but it gets old sometimes.

He then shared some of his lessons learned (these are verbatim from his slideshow):
1) bad things happen in war - keep your emotions in check
2) change is the one constant in life...thrive in dealing with change...complacency kills
3) people are generally good, very few soldiers screw up on purpose
4) common sense matters
5) micromanagement is bad...but don't confuse with need to check/inspect
6) the "book" (policy/regulation) is a guide
7) soldiers' personal lives matter...everyone has stress
8) the world is generally not black & white - lots of grayness out there
9) life is short - enjoy it/stay positive
10) don't take yourself too seriously - if you can't take a joke, leave
11) ultimately you fight for your comrades
12) only individuals and small units win our battles!

Two points that require a little expansion are 6 and 11. He says that policy and regulations are a guide, and I originally took that to meant that he was a big fan of policy and regulation, that they should always be your guide. Such is not the case though. Policy and regulation are important, but they are a guide in the sense that they only go so far and a good leader has to be willing to and comfortable with leaving the regulations behind when the situation dictates it. Creativity trumps SOP (standard operating procedure) many days of the week. The second point I thought was interesting was that you ultimately fight for your comrades. This is something you hear a lot, that at the end of the day soldiers care for nothing more than their battle buddies. At first I was like "shouldn't you be fighting for a higher purpose at the end of the day?" but then I got to thinking that it is at the beginning of the day you are fighting for the higher-order stuff like your country, the Afghan or Iraqi or people, etc. When the bullets start flying, it is absolutely true that the only reason a soldier fights is for his friend to the left and to the right of him.

There was some question and answer, but no one asked him (understandably) about the circumstances around him getting fired from commanding ISAF. Someone asked him whether we should be supporting a national government in Afghanistan because of it's tribal nature. The answer was that yes we should, but that we should also be devoting significant attention to strengthening the tribes in order to protect against the Talliban, Al Queda, or whoever is currently trying to seize power around the country. Another question posed was how do you tell the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable mistake, and I thought that this was an interesting philosophical question that you could probably write a book about. General McKiernan talked about how matters of morals and values can be unacceptable mistakes. There may be situations where people make mistakes and innocent people die, but they are possibly acceptable (and probably acceptable given the professionalism of our soldiers) depending on the circumstances.

Does anyone out there have an opinion about the difference between acceptable and unacceptable mistakes? I'm not so sure there is a such thing as an unacceptable mistake...

book reviews

So I was writing to my new friend Clark (see his blog here) that I met last week (Steve and I hosted him as part of the Battle Command Conference), and he asked me about some of the books that were on my reading list from a few weeks ago: Freakonomics, The Unforgiving Minute, and Planet Google. His inquiry was indicative of his wide variety of interests too. So I'm going to sham for tonight and share my "book reviews."

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Okay, Freakonomics: it was a really quick read and at the least it was entertaining. I think it was the case of this guy having some funny ideas about society and then finding the statistical research that backed up his thoughts. For example, one of his bigger claims is that the big drops in crime in the 1990's was not due to gun control laws, tougher police forces, or any of that. He says it is due to the Roe v Wade decision and the legalization of abortion. He says that the kids of inner city, low income families are more prone to lives of crime, and with abortion going on in spades, those crime-prone kids were not being born. Now I have a pretty big problem with this argument, I don't really think that anything good comes from abortion on the scale that we see it in our society. But the author makes his case and has some stats to back it up.

Planet Google was really good, it was the first of two books I have read on the company. I find them really fascinating as an organization (mostly because of my management studies I guess) and this was a good book. The other book, Google Speaks, was decent but not quite as good. All in all, there's a certain futility in reading about a company like Google because they are so ballistic or volatile or however you want to say it. They are in the thick of all things technological and that is of course a field that changes at an unbelievable rate. I think Planet Google was written in 2007, so some of the stuff is already outdated. I have been trying to keep on top of them as a company by reading about them in the news and following their blog too. I'm definitely a fan of all things Google though, so perhaps I'm a little biased in my opinions of them.

The Unforgiving Minute was...okay. The author, Craig Mullaney, is a West Point grad ('99 or '00 I think) and spent his first year or two in the army in England on a Rhodes scholarship. One of my TAC officers here knew him as a cadet and she affirmed the feeling I got from reading his book and from seeing an interview he did with John Stewart: he has the personality of a brick. The book talks about his cadet days, ranger school, his days at Oxford, and then his basic course and subsequent deployment. The whole thing he was gearing up to tell in the book is: does all the training that an officer (or any army leader for that matter) goes through (stuff like West Point, Ranger school, even extra education like Oxford) really prepare you for that "unforgiving minute"? Is there a course or a school that can teach you what it is like fight in a firefight or to have one of your soldiers killed in action? The answer is of course NO and I think he spent a lot of time leading up to that point but could have made it a little better in the end.

"Pershing Essay"

Here is another essay I wrote earlier in the semester in which we were asked to reflect on our West Point experience, keeping in mind this quote from General Pershing: “What the Academy stands for, has always been my guide throughout my military career, and to have approached the high ideals of duty, honor, and service to country that are the real spirit of West Point has to me a meaning that nothing else has. The longer I live, the further I have gone in the Service, the more I reverence the things that inspire the heart and soul of young men [and women] at West Point.”

Enjoy! (or not)

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General Pershing and countless other graduates of West Point, distinguished or not, have a deep reverence and awe for what the Military Academy did for them and what it does for the Army and the United States. For over two hundred years, it has educated and trained a portion of the officer corps for each military service. Highly accomplished leaders credit their development to West Point, and historians are quick to lend praise to the institution from which the likes of Lee, Pershing, Eisenhower, Westmorland, Schwarzkopf, and Petraeus have come. As I prepare to join the ranks of “the Long Gray Line,” it is appropriate that I reflect on the four years that I have walked within these long gray walls. I am not sure that I hold the same reverence for the “things that inspire” that General Pershing spoke of, but West Point has no doubt been a formative experience for me that has satisfactorily prepared me for commissioning.

First I think it fitting to reflect on the formal education I have been privileged to. I do not think it a mistake that Forbes ranked West Point as the top college in the country. For the past 8 semesters, I have had uncommon access to highly professional, knowledgeable, and dedicated instructors that show a vested interest in my educational, professional, and personal development. One of the West Point philosophies that I do subscribe to is that while the materials learned in the average core course (i.e. Chemistry, Physics, Economics, etc.) may not be essential as an officer, the critical thinking process learned is what really counts. I appreciate being able to take a problem, diagnose it, come up with a solution, and implement that solution for better or worse.

The other aspects of West Point that I have come to appreciate are the mentorships and friendships that I have established. Two of my three personal heroes are officers I have met and fostered a relationship with while at West Point. Had it not been for their influence in my life, I fear I would lack any semblance of vocational and career direction. The attention I received from my tactical officer and guidance from my tactical non-commissioned officer have been important as well, as they help govern the aspects of my education that have the most affect on my post-graduation days and nights. The exposure of Army family life I received by having a sponsor is also invaluable and something not necessarily taught in the classroom.

Despite all this, I do not think that my most profound development has been at the hand of the Academy institution and I would prefer that more cadets sought development outside the formal establishment. I know it is not a universal thing and am not suggesting that everyone needs this, but my most important personal development has been in performing a “service year” away from the academy and through the Catholic Chapel community. What most cadets lack and what is one of the most important qualities in a leader, in my opinion, is maturity. Taking substantial time outside of the regular academy regiment is vital to developing that maturity, yet few take advantage of such opportunities.

Does West Point produce quality leaders that admirably serve the Army and society? Absolutely yes. Is West Point any more special than other colleges and educational institutions? Absolutely not. I think there is a prevailing attitude of elitism that permeates the Academy culture, and I think it unhealthy for the graduates to leave here with that elitism. It makes them less likely to process the input from their peers and subordinates, two sources that are likely to yield great advice, assistance, and development. It inhibits their fullest potential and they are less likely to lead the life of service that most came here to fulfill in some capacity.

I will close with a thought from CS Lewis: you should be proud of your nation because it is yours, not because it is the greatest. In a similar vein, I will be proud to be a West Point graduate not because it is the greatest college, but because of what I made of it and because it is mine.