“West Point is wasted on cadets!”
As a Tac, this half-joking assertion by a visiting professor of history at USMA stuck in my mind. Cadets are so busy just surviving, they neither fully understand nor appreciate the long-term benefits of the often-painful process. Now, after 50+ years, I appreciate even more what West Point achieved. It’s not too much to say that my experiences at West Point shaped my character, purpose, vision, and goals in life more than any other place.
Clearly, it was there I was introduced to the Profession of Arms and the Brotherhood of Warriors into what became my life calling. West Point taught me how to think and act honorably; commit humbly to a cause greater than myself; live a rigorous, disciplined life in mind, body, and soul; experience daily situations to succeed or fail as a follower and leader; retain a good sense of humor, especially in the midst of high stress; and rely on the close support, strong encouragement, and teamwork of company and classmates who became – and remain – closest friends. All these hard-knock experiences and more come to mind.
One aspect, however, that stands out was setting priorities. As a Plebe, I learned quickly that much more was expected of me than I could deliver. Planning ahead, prioritizing tasks, and taking the right action at the right time was the only way to survive! Lesson learned: no plan survives first contact with the enemy but failing to plan is planning to fail. I grew accustomed to a life of action, not contemplation, first on a personal level, then as a leader. Under the daily stress of cadet life, a solid foundation was laid in setting priorities, making plans, and taking action to accomplish the mission: in classrooms, barracks, and in the field.
More important and enduring than any of those skills, however, were the relationships forged at West Point. The bonds of brotherhood sealed by trial during those four challenging USMA years laid the foundation for future bonds of marriage, family, faith, and service to others all my life. The ancient Celts had a phrase for those places where the physical and spiritual worlds seem to meet: “thin places.” For me and my family, West Point is a “thin place.”
What West Point Means To Me – Sally Robyn
My connection to West Point began the summer of 1965. My high school boyfriend left, as summer began, to enter USMA Class of ‘69. I looked forward to his letters that trickled in bearing a West Point postmark and designation, New Cadet Eric Robyn. He wrote of hazing and a regimen known as “Beast Barracks” but for me his pictures belied words of misery – I was enthralled by the gray granite buildings and his uniform of gray. I had heard of West Point, of course, but it existed merely as a picture postcard of cadets on parade, a legendary football tradition and the high ideals of Duty, Honor, Country. No doubt this mystique was aided by Hollywood and a popular TV series made in 1959-60. Seeing it firsthand was not even on my radar until Eric and his parents invited me to Plebe Parent Weekend, pretty heady stuff for a high school senior. There began my lifelong love affair with the place and my special cadet. To excuse missing several days of classes, I argued that Plebe Parent Weekend would be my only time EVER to visit the Academy. My parents agreed it was an opportunity not to be missed. However, yearly trips to New York soon became a pattern. Post June Week 1969, my newly minted lieutenant traded cadet gray for fatigues and a wife. When we returned in 1976 for an assignment in the Tactical Department, I saw through his eyes those same mythical cadets in gray as malleable future officers in need of daily discipline and guidance. Their pranks, ever new to them, were rarely new to the “Tac” who once stood in their shoes. When our son Jed was born in the Old Cadet Hospital my room overlooked Eric’s Plebe barracks, a coming full circle. In 1988 cadet gray became the familiar dress of our son Paul, Class of 1992, a ‘69 Class son.
When Paul and family later returned to a teaching assignment in the Social Science Department my vantage point again changed. I was now mother of an instructor. I have been blessed by West Point through key experiences of life – courtship, marriage, parenting and a host of friends. Once asked if I distilled Eric’s 26-year career to only one assignment which would I choose. The answer was and will always be West Point.
What West Point Means To Me – Jim Russell
• I’m the first generation in my family to attend college. And the eldest.
• Being accepted at Penn State was a big deal. Would have meant loans and trivial student jobs. After graduation, a cubicle in an engineering firm in Pittsburgh.
• Then West Point invited me to join the Class of ’69.
• I was blown away. Had I understood West Point better, I’d probably have just fainted.
• The decision to attend was not easy. There was that five-year commitment, to an Army life I knew little about. OK, I really knew nothing about it.
• Men in my life convinced me West Point was worth the risk and effort, and Penn State later would always be there.
• Seeing West Point for the first time on R Day was, HA!!, a shock. The place, the program, but especially the people.
• The staff and faculty – Where do they get these guys?
• The upperclassmen – Where do they get THESE guys?
• My classmates – Unbelievable. One gem after another, with astonishingly few clunkers. I occasionally felt like the Admissions Mistake of ‘69, but my classmates unfailingly embraced me as one of them, fully fledged.
• Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words.
• Followed closely, if unspoken, by God, care for others, confidence in self and team, and belief in the fundamental goodness of West Point, the Army, and the United States.
• Commanding American soldiers in exotic places, representing the best of America in a world filled with conflict and potential nuclear annihilation. A responsibility and privilege accorded to only a few.
• Learning from superhuman commanders, several of whom reached four stars.
• Bearing fragments of the responsibility America carries: protecting our people, as well as many others. Enabling life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Keeping the lamp of Western civilization from being snuffed out.
• Occasionally glimpsing the View From The Top of some Really Big Issues. Grasping them as an engineer from Penn State probably could not.
• Losing classmates, as expected, in a badly-chosen war. And now losing more to the ravages of age, which somehow surprise and confound us.
• Fifty years on, still meeting classmates I never knew. Everyone turns out to be a new friend I’m proud to have.
• Hoping my modest contributions bear some relationship to the monumental undeserved gift that West Point has been.
• And hoping to be as blessed in The Next Life as I have been in this one.
What West Point Means To Me – Bob Jannarone
West Point is home to me. I was born there and spent fifteen of my first twenty-two years there. During childhood, I thought it was idyllic. Five other Army brats from my high school were going to go to the Military Academy, and convinced me to go, too. I thought it would be extremely tough, but would make me a better person, and it did. West Point was a level playing field, where success comes through perseverance and hard work, not from status beforehand. Besides the Ten Commandments, it is also my moral compass as stated in the motto “Duty, Honor, Country”. From my work as an Academy Admissions Officer, I’ve seen firsthand the political side of getting into West Point in the first place. My father was denied a nomination three years in a row because he didn’t have political connections. On the fourth try, his congressman directed a freshman congressman to nominate my dad, which he did. Dad finished first in his class and ultimately became a general.
My brother was nominated because of dad’s status as an active-duty soldier—not political. When my turn came, dad knew the drill. I prepped for a Civil Service Exam, scored 100%, got my congressman’s principal nomination, though he wanted to shunt me off to the Air Force Academy, and was admitted with a waiver for height. There is an instant bond with any other graduate because, though we might have come from different backgrounds, we all went through a very rigorous program. I remember one Superintendent saying that West Pointers don’t just meet standards, they set the standards. I met my wife there and worked there for another eleven years as a Department of the Army Civilian. I must say that working there as a civilian is far different from being a uniformed officer. Throughout a career in the Regular Army and Reserves the knowledge that I was a West Pointer spurred me on to do the best I could for our country.
What West Point Means To Me – Suzanne Rice
I didn’t know Bill when he was a cadet. My first glimpse of West Point might have been watching the old television program,” The West Point Story” from the 1950’s. (must have been impressive for a little girl to remember) My next encounter with West Point was years later when I was in Junior College in my hometown. In my class was an impressive young man from a nearby small town; he was taking classes as he awaited admission to West Point. I didn’t understand the admission process at the time, but it was clear to all who knew him that he was an extraordinary person – way better than the rest of us, so West Point must be a special place if he wanted to go. (It was with great sadness that I learned a few years later that after his graduation in 1970, he was killed in an accident on a jump during Airborne School only a few months after his graduation from West Point.) After Bill and I were married and were returning to the U.S. from Bill’s first assignment in Germany, I asked to visit West Point since we were nearby picking up our car that had been shipped home. It was February and Bill had no desire to go back, three years later, but as a new bride, I was able to convince him to take me – it was my first glimpse of the beauty of the place even during Gloom Period.
At that time, I didn’t know that Bill would later become a professor in the USMA Math Department for four years; it was then that I began to understand not just the physical beauty of the place, but I got to know the people there and understand the important mission to which they promise to give even their lives. After Bill’s unexpected death, I witnessed the amazing love and support that was offered by Bill’s classmates and other grads that we had come to know over Bill’s 27 years on active duty. They rallied around the family, especially our son, who was himself a cadet at the time. I have found that the graduates of West Point take the values of Duty, Honor, Country with them wherever they go, hold on to them and exemplify them as long as they live.