The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#098 Crucibles: The Naval Academy Transformative Rite of Passage
The United States Naval Academy's crucible experience has evolved significantly over the years, adapting to new generations while maintaining its core purpose. In this episode, I sit down with Admiral Jim McNeal, author of the new book "Crucibles," to explore how the Academy's transformative journey shapes future naval leaders.
We delve into the essence of what makes a crucible experience effective and how the Naval Academy has refined its approach. Admiral McNeal shares personal insights from his plebe year, offering a unique perspective on the changes and constants in the Academy's methods.
Key Insights from Our Conversation:
- The shift from attrition-focused to development-centered training
- How daily challenges at the Academy build resilience and leadership skills
- The importance of failure as a learning tool in a low-risk environment
- Why seemingly mundane tasks like chow calls and formations are crucial for future officers
- The enduring value of the Naval Academy experience in creating lifelong bonds
Admiral McNeal emphasizes that while tactics may change, the core mission remains: preparing officers who can lead under pressure and prioritize their team's well-being.
For Plebes and Their Families
As Plebe Parents Weekend approaches, Admiral McNeil offers words of encouragement:
"To the plebes: There is a method to the madness. Embrace the challenge, knowing that countless others would trade places with you. To the parents: Support your midshipmen, allow them to vent, but trust the process."
This episode provides valuable insights for current and future midshipmen, their families, and anyone interested in understanding the unique crucible that shapes America's naval leaders.
Buy Admiral McNeal's book here: https://www.amazon.com/Crucibles-Formidable-Passage-Worlds-Organizations/dp/1572843527
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community with nationwide consulting and connection.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
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Hey everyone and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. In this episode I have a guest return. He's been on the podcast a couple of times Admiral Jim McNeil.
Speaker 1:He just published a brand new book called Crucibles, which is an interesting perspective and research and thought book about elite organizations and kind of the rites of passage and indoctrination phases for those organizations. They talk about the NASA program, they talk about the Marine Corps, they talk about monks and different organizations, even the mob, to talk about kind of how elite-run organizations have utilized crucibles in order to get people to go from zero to one into their organization, and so I love this. It's super exciting. The book is actually framed around his police summer experience and how the Naval Academy is continuing to run this crucible in the preparation of Navy and Marine Corps officers. I'm so excited You're going to love this episode.
Speaker 1:Check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks so much and enjoy the listen. Hi everyone and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. I'm McNeil my guy. Welcome back. Thank you. Insider Podcast. I'm with McNeil my guy. Welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. For anyone who hasn't been listening to the podcast or heard one of your many visits on the podcast before, do you mind just doing a quick introduction of yourself so that people know who you are and what you're currently doing at the Academy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, grant, thanks so much for having me on and I'm a 1986 grad supply corps officer, was in the reserves for 25 years. After my six years of active duty, seven command tours, three XO tours, a couple of deployments to the Middle East. In conjunction with that, I had a civilian job. I was an owner of a business executive search business. I retired in 2017. My wife, who's also a classmate, got her PhD. She's a professor at Towson University in Baltimore, so we moved back here in 2018. Teaching NE203, ethical and moral reasoning for the naval leader since 2020, and mentor lots of mids.
Speaker 1:Lots of mids. That's the understatement of the century.
Speaker 3:Yeah lots of mids and so, just by virtue of being there every day and hearing things, I'm probably more in tune with what's going on at the academy than most people, than most.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and you use that to even author books as well, and this is what we're again so excited to do it. You're on your third book. You had one about Herndon Klein, another about leadership development and this third and most recent, an incredible book here called Crucibles. And so really the first question, just to start us off, is what was the interest, motivation, what caused you to actually do the research into many historical elite, performing organizations, to write this book?
Speaker 3:So our thanks for the shout out on our first two books, the Herndon Climb and Side by Side. So for the Herndon Climb, that was published by the Naval Institute Press and we were, I was with another author, we did a author meet and greet, kind of question and answer session at the Naval Institute Press building in Hospital Point, and so they said, hey, find us a moderator and you know, have them ask you questions and we'll invite people, et cetera, et cetera, you know kind of publicity tour. So I was, I was really really smart, I handpicked the moderator I took, I said, okay, give me the questions in advance. And so when he asked me the questions during this event, he, I, I seemed incredibly eloquent and and had great answers to all of his questions. And I was cruising along and then at the end last thing he said was unscripted hey, what's your next project? And all of his questions. And I was cruising along and then at the end last thing he said was unscripted, hey, what's your next project? And all of a sudden I was but and so I kind of bumbled and stumbled my way and I just off the off the cuff, said, well, I think it'd be really cool to do a book about the the history of of plea beer at the naval academy. And he said, okay, well, that's great. And then we kind of ended it there and I just kind of tucked that away.
Speaker 3:So my writing partner, eric Smith, and I, when we got done with Side by Side, we had turned that into the publisher we started talking about different potential projects and I said, hey, why don't we? You know, I mentioned this at this author event, what do you think about that? And he said, well, why don't we? You know, I'm not sure that we could frame an entire book on that. And then the other little piece that I had was a tidbit of information is there's a class at the Academy called Code of the Warrior and it's all.
Speaker 3:And I don't know if you took that there or heard of that class, but you study different organizations and the reason I know about that class is because they have posters that are all over Luce Hall, which is the professional development building. They're in the stairwells. Every time you walk up the stairs you see them. I said, hey, let me call you back. I took pictures of all of these different posters. I said, what if we did a book framed with our Plebe experience. So maybe the prologue was Plebe Summer, the epilogue was Plebe Year, and then we looked at these various organizations that took kind of normal people, everyday people, and made them elite and what are?
Speaker 3:some of the lessons that we could learn from that, and so that's what we ended up doing the introduction. I interviewed dr marcus hedol, who was one of the philosophy teachers at the naval academy, and he did a really great job of kind of framing it, and then we just picked different organizations. We probably had 25 that we submitted or that was on our in our proposal that we were going to look at and we settled on the ones that ended up in the book and we had some really, really great interviews also, and that that's, I think, what really made it fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's so cool. And again, if it spans so many different organizations, time periods, et cetera, lots of different thought into this book, which is incredible. But, like you mentioned, you use your own plebe experience as the framing for this entire book and so for our Academy audience, you mind walking us through in reflection what made your plebe year such a defining, crucible experience for you, and how do you recognize it now, the way that it was transforming you back then that you might have not even understood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, great, great question. So I had a little bit of an advantage because I ended up having to go to the Naval Academy Prep School, which was fantastic for me. I was only 17 when I graduated high school, so it was kind of a great you know, redshirt year that I could do. So when I got to the Naval Academy for Plebe Summer and the Napsters come in a day early and we started, it wasn't that big of a deal to me. I knew how to march, I knew how to wear a uniform, I had a haircut. I always was blessed with a really good memory. So really, plebe Summer wasn't very difficult. And the thing about plebe summer was the ratio really worked in your favor because you had a squad of, say, 12 plebes and you had a squad leader, and then there were other some other assorted detailers, but probably the ratio was five or six to one, so five or six plebes to one upper class and typically, like I said, I had a good memory. I was always very good at rates and could always regurgitate what I needed to on command, and so during Plead Summer if you were able to get your answers out, they would usually leave you alone. So I had a pretty good the meals would be, they'd ask you a reign If you got it. You got to pretty much eat. So plead summer in that sense was, was, was fairly easy.
Speaker 3:Then the academic year started and the ratio flipped. And you know, I think one of the big, you know the old days it used to be the mission was attrition. In the old days the naval academy and this is just my opinion, this is not official naval academy pao stuff, but this is my observation the naval academies in my day said hey, here's somebody on paper who looks really really good. They seem to have what it takes morally, mentally, physically to be successful. Uh, so we're going to give them a shot. But they're going to put them through this crucible. And if they make it great, and if they don't, that's fine too.
Speaker 3:And so during Cleve Summer there were classmates of mine that struggled. And if you struggled Cleve Summer, the class of 83, our favorites, our firsties they ran people out, they ran people out of there. And so once the academic year started it was really really tough. The meals were the worst time. The meals were. You had to serve the upper class all of their drinks, their meals, all in the meantime answering rates and so your entire and lunch and dinner were mandatory. So lunch and dinner you pretty much didn't eat and you were serving the upper class and answering rates and if you were lucky the upper class would leave and you would get a chance to maybe get something to eat. But you had to go, you couldn't leave early and it was just every single day, twice a day, just getting beat on and beat on, and beat on.
Speaker 3:And it was and they didn't, and in the class of 83, maybe somebody that listens to listen are going to be listening to this, maybe somebody that's going to be listening to this? They took particular delight in performing that mission, and at least the ones in my company. They just didn't like us. There's no other way to put it.
Speaker 3:And so they didn't let up at all and I can remember when we went into exams second semester the brigade commander was a football player. He gave us carry-on. Basically we could eat normally at meals. Carry-on means we didn't have to sit up and square meals and all that sort of stuff. Lunch before herndon was in the afternoon. It was the first thing of commissioning week on a friday. We were at lunch, we were giddy, happy, we're going to do herndon and that's, you know, our plea. Beer will officially be over. And we were a little bit too giggly and giddy and a couple of members of 83 were there and they yelled at us at that lunch and said we don't care what you guys do today at Herndon, you'll always be pleased to us.
Speaker 3:And so part of the reason that I wrote that Herndon book and why it was so important is that that was an unbelievable moment in my life Second to graduation, when we finally got that cover on there and that experience was over. It was an absolute crucible. So I guess second part of your question is, when I look back on it, I'm very proud of the fact that I completed that crucible and while I'm not happy at what happened, I don't think I would have had it any other way and it's. It's all part of you know, it was all part of the plan, god's plan for me and all part of my journey. And if that hadn't happened, who knows how things you know would have turned out. But I think the thing for me was and if you, in the beginning of the book, eric and I so my dad was in the Marines, class 62.
Speaker 3:Eric's dad was not an academy grad, but he was a colonel in the Marines. During our plebe year, eric's dad was in the Marine barracks in Beirut. Now, he wasn't there for the bombing, but that's where he was for Eric's year. In fact, eric, he wasn't there for plebe, summer or parents weekend, but Eric and I both talked about our dads and how we grew up and for us, yeah, plebe was difficult, but we also knew that there wasn't any midshipmen that could yell at us worse than our dads did, and we also knew the midshipmen couldn't hit us, which our dads had no problem doing. So our dads, that's why we said the you know the crucibles they put us through and the crucibles they endured. That's why we put that in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, super interesting and I'm going to go back to some of the originally you said which is again this this almost shift in transformation from this idea that, like, attrition is the mission to development is the mission, right? And I think what's really interesting and you call it out in your Marine Corps chapter, it's a quote from General Reynolds our goal is not to weed you out. That is not what a crucible is about. A crucible is about proving to you that you can do hard things. It goes on to say like we're hunting for the good, we're hunting for the good and then we'll make you elite, right? And I think that's a really interesting framing and transition, which we will jump into a little bit further in the episode. But we keep using this term crucible. It's the title of the book. Do you mind talking a little bit about what?
Speaker 3:you define a crucible as, and what the book would define a crucible as, and what are the non-negotiable components that actually make up a crucible, as we're referencing this through the episode. Well, I think every organization, certainly every elite organization who wants to consider themselves elite, has some sort of crucible, some sort of barrier to entry, and those vary. And I think that when you look at a crucible as a defining event, it's whatever that organization determines is necessary for that organization. And so when you look at a crucible, so for the Naval Academy, the crucible is you have to be able to pass the Naval Academy curriculum, you know if you're a.
Speaker 3:I don't know what your major was. I was an oceanography major. But if you're an English major, hey, I'm really excited to take a bunch of English classes. You're not going to take a bunch of English classes at the Naval Academy, right, You're? Going to take their amount.
Speaker 3:All that STEM stuff gets jammed down your throat, right, and you have to pass the PRT, you have to live within the confines of an honorable existence, you're not allowed to cheat, you have to be okay with. Hey, I'm a freshman and I'm not going to be able to drink beer in my dorm room or go out whenever I want, and that's part of that, of that, of that crucible. Sure, you know the, you know the, the, the Gurkhas in Nepal. You know their crucible is in, in, in. You know that that was a really interesting chapter to to research and write Right, because if you are a Gurkha if you're, I mean Paul first of all, the per capita income is very, very low. And if you become a Gurkha, which is part of the British army, you and your family are basically set for life, and that's why so many of the young men try to do that. And in one of the things we talk about in the book, one of their final pieces of the crucible is they have to haul a bunch of rocks up a big hill, and even if one falls out, then they're out, and so so many people try to do that and very few succeed, and that's why the GERKs are considered an elite organization If you look at.
Speaker 3:You know Lori Reynolds had talked about, you know, the Marine boot camp experience. One of the really interesting things and I think the other services and I didn't know this, so one of the really fun things about writing these books and researching these books is that Eric and I learned, you know, we, we don't. It's not like we're subject matter experts at any of this stuff, we just we. Hey, this is interesting, so let's do some research. And one of the things that I didn't know is that the Marines put their best people in recruiting, whereas a lot the other services don't necessarily do that. And the Marines and that's why the Marines always hit their goals, because if you get selected to be a Marine recruiter, you're, you're the best of the best, right, and, as Lori said, yeah, we're, we're, we're. We're not trying to weed you out. We brought you in because we think you can succeed and it's our job to help you succeed. So that's certainly the mission of the Naval Academy Now. That's certainly the mission of the Naval Academy. Now, that's certainly the mission that the Naval Academy is embracing, and I could absolutely make a case for both, for both ways.
Speaker 3:Sure, I know my, my wife and I have talked about this and she, you know, if you ask her about hey, who is the? Who is the person pleaded, summer in your company that had the most trouble? Oh, kerr, about hey, who is the person, please, summer in your company that had the most trouble? Oh, it was this person. I won't say the name and what happened? Oh, they ran him out.
Speaker 3:Okay, so one of the great things about being alive in 2025 is you have access to information, right? A lot of you know. So we're driving cross country. I said, okay, let's Google this guy, let's see what he's up to, right, he's not a derelict, he's not living in the street, he's the executive vice president of a bank in the midwest. So you're just fine, you're just doing great right, doing a pillar of the community. So the question is the name. You know, the class of 83 didn't feel like in 13th company didn't feel like and 13th Company didn't feel like he was worthy of being in this organization. Sure, but did we miss on him? I don't know. It's kind of an academic argument because it is what it is right now. Academic argument because it is what it is right now, but it's fascinating to look at this. The Naval Academy that has kind of changed their crucible event so much, yet is still the same organization because most of your crucible, you know, most of the organizations we looked at did not do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and it's really fascinating because your book does emphasize kind of like the ethical shift of the crucible design for modern organizations and how things have evolved significantly right. And since you're a plebeian to what the Academy is currently doing, how do you think the Academy has been able to maintain and or improve the crucible experience and still maintain the same like integrity to the organization and same mission, purpose and end desired goal, with a little bit of shift and transformation on how it's executed?
Speaker 3:no, it's a great question and and I think what the academy has done- and whether, whether it was by.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know whether they want to take credit and say, yeah, which was the all along, or whether it's just kind of how it happened or it was an accident. But people have changed right. So if you look at, you know, so you know, baby boom, you know, my wife says we're not baby boomers, but we are. We're born in 63 and 64. So you know, the baby boomer is way different than the Gen X, which is way different than the millennial, which is way different than the current group was Gen Z, and there's no way that the academy could have maintained the way that they were doing things as these generations shifted.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, alive still would say, oh, you know, your plea beer was nothing compared to ours. You know, you guys were soft because a lot of the stuff that happened in the old days was just a lot of really. You know the kids hazing, physical abuse, all that type of stuff, and really was that? You mean that stuff's not going to fly right now. But was that stuff necessary for the crucible? Right, because now if they said, hey, we're not going to have any physical standards anymore, that would not be. You know that crucible is still there. Hey, we're not a credit, you know we don't. We're kind of a glorified community college. We're not accredited anymore. So so the academics, that's not a crucible. That stuff is still there. You still have to wear a uniform, you still have to Again, not the bad stuff doesn't happen at Bancroft Hall, but it's not allowed and if you get caught you get hammered so that's it.
Speaker 1:It still sucks. Being on restrictions still sucks.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you what although even that's gotten a little bit less you could. They got a little community service stuff you can do now. So so, to answer your question, yeah, some of the more tactical specific things are different. And I just had a great opportunity one of my mentees as a squad leader this summer and I got an opportunity to talk to a couple company worth of plebes about 60 plebes and you know and we got to kind of talk about, you know, what the whole kind of purpose of this is and really the in the old days again missions. So if you fail, that was like okay, you're gone, now it's okay, you fail, that's okay, it's okay to fail, but let's, let's, let's try to make sure you that doesn't happen again now if you continue to fail then, we, then maybe this isn't the right place for you, sure, but if you're trying to figure it out, if you're, you've got life.
Speaker 3:You know these are 18, 19, 20 year old kids. If they have life skill issues, we need to help them with that. Sure, again, with the guy that couldn't make it in the summer of 1982, would he have been a tremendous naval officer? Maybe and I think so the flip side is we missed. Maybe we missed out on a lot of really good people. Sure, because we ran people out who couldn't figure it out. Or are we graduating a few people that maybe shouldn't, but we're getting people who? You know what I'm saying. You're always going to either getting rid of people you shouldn't have got rid of or maybe graduating a few people that maybe shouldn't have graduated.
Speaker 1:Interesting. That's a fascinating perspective and kind of what I'll almost tailor this next piece of your answer to, which is after studying a ton of elite organizations and your flexion on the Naval Academy from your time to today's in generation, how do you even begin to measure whether a crucible experience has actually worked? What indicators do we show that the Naval Academy's crucible experience is producing the leaders that America needs and that we're not, you know, missing out on? Too many people are now, at this point, maybe producing too many who don't actually for lack of a better term, I don't, I don't know that deserve is the right word, but like, maybe shouldn't have made it through. But how do we, how do we measure success in that, in the success of a crucible event?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you I I mean the customer is the fleet, right. So I think you know when you look at what's really interesting in your class of 17, right, okay? So you know, your, your, your peers are still in our, you know, senior lieutenants and but 10 years from now they're going to be, you know, you know, in command and then 10 years after that they're going to start making flag and all this stuff and you're going to say, did you hear so? And so made flag? What that guy used to get drunk on the car every Saturday night. So there's a lot, you know. Obviously there's a lot of Academy people out there and from the feedback that I get from you know, and really my class, very few are on still on active duty. I mean Jim Kilby, who's the acting CNO, he's one of them, but we just have a small handful. But at one time my class had fifth, sixth and seventh fleet handful. But at one time my class had fifth, sixth and seventh fleet. Uh, and if you talk to them, hey, the academy, the academy, you know, officers that you know come out either.
Speaker 3:Marine corps and the navy side are doing great things. And if we, if we get into a situation where it is. Again, I think if you're a, you know, if you're a captain, you don't really care how someone's plea of year was. Hey, can I trust you as a lieutenant JG, as officer of the deck, so I can get some sleep when we're in the middle of the ocean, no one else cares, no one cares about the crucible, and that's really what the deal is. Can you answer the bell as an organization? Really, what the deal can you answer the bell? Can you, you know, as an organization? And really, until you get feedback that, hey, you know, I don't know what about the class of fill in the blank? But, yeah, you know, I had eight of them, show you know, four of them showed up to my ship and I, none of them could qualify and I had to. Just, they had to all separate them for the navy.
Speaker 3:Well then, that's a problem, but I'm not hearing that. And and I don't hear that, yeah, you know, every academy grad goes down to Pensacola fails out of flight school. Not hearing that, I'm not hearing about, hey, everybody that goes down to TBS, we can't get any Marines. Every everyer conflict with China, which I still, I think a lot of people are predicting that I'm not in that camp and that's obviously. That's a Paul Becker discussion. If we did have some sort of conflict like that and the Naval Academy people, officers out there did not perform as good or better than the OCS and Nazi people, then I think you would have a problem because we're in a very austere budget environment and it costs a lot of money to Naval Academy is not cheap. I mean, there's a lot of overhead. I mean there's a lot.
Speaker 3:I mean NAAA pays for itself, but you got all the military people there, you got the faculty, you got the staff and the infrastructure. I mean it's expensive to you know, if somebody leaves. I think they tag the number at $250,000 or something, and I don't know where they get that number from, but it's a lot of money. So I think for the Naval Academy in the future, you have to make sure there's a return on investment. Or you know, hey, why do we have the Naval Academy when we had this war with China that we lost and all the Naval Academy people that didn't do very well? That, I think, will be a tough conversation to have. Hopefully it won't happen. I don't think it will happen, but that, I think, is where to answer your question in a roundabout way. That's where people are going to question the crucible if we're not successful. And then I guess the little tangent aside is, with the new superintendent coming in, a first Marine, everybody's very interested to see what's going to happen with that. Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it kind of goes back to what you said, which is that the crucible will change with the people Right and if the, if the, the avatar of the people in the kind of the most senior leadership position shifts again. Like how does that affect the organization and and the crucible. So really, really, really interesting and fascinating stuff. I appreciate your insight there. The kind of next piece that I do want to talk about is we keep on mentioning this crucible event and a lot of the stuff in the book.
Speaker 1:The Marine Corps is their 13-week boot camp. You have a lot of different stuff. That's kind of a shorter time frame. How does it apply to the Naval Academy? Because we've talked about really Plebe Summer being a crucible event, but also really Plebe Year, and then we go back and talk about well, really it's actually the academic crucible and the physical crucible. That kind of goes all four years. Does it ever end? Like, what is the? How would you actually define the true Naval Academy crucible event? Or can it be crucible within a crucible, almost crucible-ception? How are we kind of like defining that and how does it relate to the Naval Academy organization?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, good question. So I think the way I would look at it is is it's, it's a daily grind and you can, you know, it's not just about the exams, it's not just about the physical readiness test, it just isn't about summer training, it's the and you obviously went through it. Uh, it's the day to day stuff. It's and and it's not the big stuff, it's the little stuff. And one of the things when I look at elite organizations, most organizations out there let's pick fast food. If you go to any fast food restaurant, they're going to be able to prepare food, give it to you, accept payment, and most people, most fast food places, can do that. Well, what makes Chick-fil-A so unique? Because they do the little stuff right. They're fast, they're courteous, the places are always spotless right. So one of the things that I've observed is that most people can do the big stuff, but really truly elite people and elite organizations do the little stuff.
Speaker 3:And I would say the little stuff at the academy is just dealing with the day-to-day grind. And how do I, you know, just pick a snapshot in time. Hey, I've got a forestall, I've got a forestall. I've got a big test tomorrow, but there's a forestall lecture, right, I've got, you know, I, I, I have a, uh, I, I, you know, pull the muscle, but I've got to do the prt tomorrow. Uh, you know, I'm down it. I'm down at leatherneck doing my marine training and we haven't been around here. It's been super, super hot lately, right, they've got to be absolutely, you know, it's got to be really rough on them. So it's that day-to-day stuff and I think what the academy does, not necessarily on purpose, and maybe it is on purpose because, again, you have the big stuff, but can you just deal with the day-to-day to day-to-day stuff, right?
Speaker 1:and it is a grind the daily grind.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is I think the Academy still does a great job of if you have a weakness, the Academy is going to find it, they're going to exploit it and it's okay to have that a weakness we all have weaknesses but if you're not able to fix that weakness and address that weakness, you're not going to be successful. If you cannot figure out how to pass STEM classes, you're not going to. You're just not going to be successful. If you can't, if you're just not a good runner and you can't figure out a way to pass the run of the PRT, you're you're not going to be successful. And you know it could be something as hey, I need to pass this, I didn't study for this test and I want to have, I don't want to be on sack because I don't want to lose my weekends. And man, it's really tempting right now to look at my neighbor Grant's paper because I know he's super smart, he's probably got the right answers. Man, it's really tempting to look over and take a look and and check out that answer, something as small as that, and having the discipline and that grind to say nope, I'm going to the myths, say fail with honor, I'm going to fail with honor. And it's just the little, little little stuff that happens every single day. It's just, and that's why it's.
Speaker 3:You see Naval Academy, people go out. You know, obviously successful in the military. But you know, and you're a LinkedIn guy, look at all the famous and you know successful people on LinkedIn and that's just life Right and you know so. So it's good preparation. I mean, the Naval Academy is way better preparation for for being adulting, as the kids would say that it is going to San Diego state and party Right Cause you've got to be present every single day. You've got to be successful every single day, and really that's the crucible. That's really what it's all about being successful in a lot of different things, battling through your adversity, battling through the things that you aren't that good at, but doing it every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that framing. I think it's a great answer. It's something that I always talk about again on this platform and just in general, which is that the Naval Academy is going to make you someone who handles the hard moments of life better, like the daily grind better, just because you've done it, because you know how to adjust to it, you know how to adapt to it and just work through it, and I think it's a great framing of, like the Naval Academy Crucible experience. I think that's really cool and it's something that goes for me every day and I do appreciate that. Shout out If you are someone, follow me on LinkedIn. I love it, always there, always posting. So thanks for that, since you brought it up.
Speaker 3:I mean, you're a perfect example of that. You, you do a ton of things. You're super engaged, you're you know, you're the epitome of the. You know, if you want something done, give it to the busiest person. You know, and you make it look really, really easy. I get tired just reading your linkedin posts because of all the different stuff that you do, but the thing that really really impresses me about you grant and I'm gonna say this appreciate, you know publicly is everything you do. It's always for other people, right, I mean, the academy insider is not you talking about your basketball career, right? Although you'd probably love to to do every single podcast talking about?
Speaker 1:in my dad's office with the jersey behind. Just yeah, just casually, right but it's not.
Speaker 3:And for somebody of your age to be so devoted to other people in service, it's really inspiring and I like to think that that at this stage of my life, at 61 and semi-retired, you know I'm I'm giving back, I think a little bit uh, but for you, at your stage of the game, all that you give back I I mean you, you know a year in your life is way more than most people do their entire lives. So I, you know, I thank you and I appreciate everything that you do for so many people. Thank you.
Speaker 1:That's, I'm humbled, without like thank you, that's really kind. I just, you know the Naval Academy, the crucible experience for me, was very transformational, right, like I think I probably had one of the more polarizing experiences and so that's kind of led me to this, to this path, right, and it's something that even though. Right the letter, the letter home. I hate this freaking place. Get me out of here now. Dude, like what did I do?
Speaker 3:Your mom saved that obviously.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's framed in the house.
Speaker 3:Is it really? Oh, she'll never let me live it down.
Speaker 3:She'll never let me live it down, you know, and that's what I, you know, that's what I tried to tell the, that's what I tried to tell the pleads on Monday. I said you know, I said you, everybody's here for different reasons. Okay, don't be intimidated because you don't. Your reason is as good as someone else, it doesn't really matter. Right, everybody has different reasons for coming. You're here now, and that now it's about getting you know. Getting you, you know, getting to a point where you can leave right, you know doing everything you can before you graduate to make yourself the best you can. And hey, if you're struggling right now and you're failing, that's part of it, that's the whole thing. And if you go in and I think they got it because a couple of kids chime in, you know you want to fail now because that's, this is a low risk. No one's going to get killed if you fail at the as the Naval Academy. But now in the fleet, people die, right, people die and people get hurt and equipment gets ruined, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So for someone to say you know what, I went through the Naval Academy, I didn't fail at anything any time I would be really worried. I would be really worried because the other thing, not only you're not fixing some things. I've seen people who haven't been successful because they haven't figured out how to fail. And if you don't know how to fail, then you get failure. Then what? Here come the failure. Not me, not me, not me.
Speaker 3:I think the Academy could do a better job of explaining why things happen there, even things that kind of seem dumb. And why are we doing this? Because it's an opportunity to put you under stress and an opportunity for you to fail in a very maybe high stress for your POV point of view, but low risk. You know, chow calls, chow calls. You know, if your audience doesn't know it's 10 minutes and five minutes for formation, please do it. They scream out a bunch of information.
Speaker 3:You know where the formation is, the uniform, all this different information and people. You know, oh well, I've, I gotta do a chow call. This is so dumb. Well, the reason a chow call is important is because and your wife would, I think, say this, as she's flying around her helicopter, something happens in her helicopter, god forbid. She has to understand, no, those emergency procedures, has to recall them, has those emergency procedures, has to recall them, has to say them out loud to her co-pilot and they can't look it up, they can't Google it and that's a little bit of stress, right, if you're flying around and something happens.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what her and I we spent our date nights for a good year and a half. Was her going through her EPs with me on the couch, right Like we said, eps, emergency procedures right Like. Because if something happens, there's no pulling out the booklet, right no, pulling out reef points right Like. If something happens. If that indicator shows a warning failure, then she needs to take immediate action. She needs to know exactly what she's doing to save this, save the helicopter, right.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and so, yeah, so there is value in learning how to learn something that maybe you're not familiar with, be able to memorize it, then regurgitate it under a stressful environment, and if you have three people standing around you waiting for you to choke and you choke and you get yelled at or whatever, then that's a failure that we want to happen now, not when you're out on deployment, flying out of flying a 60 helicopter heck yeah and but we?
Speaker 3:but academy doesn't do a good job of explaining that not only to the police but to all the men's. Sure, and some get it, but, but you know, for formations you now I'm going to get on my soapbox, but formation is another thing, you know. It's viewed as formation is viewed, as you know, irritant. And why do I have to do this and why can't I sleep in all of a sudden? Because formation is. It builds that muscle memory of making sure you know where your people are at, of making sure you know where your people are at and when you're underway on a ship and where's so-and-so.
Speaker 3:Oh, I think I saw him in the head. Oh, okay, no, we need to cite that person. They might have fallen off the ship, right, and that's our number one job as officers is to take care of our people, and you can't take care of your people if you don't know where they're at. So, yes, maybe the number of formations is excessive, okay, that's fine. But guess what, when you get on the fleet, that will be so drummed into your head that you'll never, ever forget it. And if we start easing off on this and now they have sleep ins and sign ins and all this other stuff. I worry that we're losing that muscle memory, and that's how bad things happen is when we don't have 100% accountability of people, and that's our job. You can't take care of your people that way.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, no, it's. I appreciate you saying all that. You know, it's something that, again, I like having the opportunity, hopefully, to this. You know, usually my audience is really the families and the parents, but get to articulate that mission or like that purpose to them, right, so they understand it. Because, again, I mentioned it and I got to speak at the Welcome Abort event for the incoming families in Southern California this past year and I mentioned, right like that day I was supposed to fly out to Vietnam to visit my wife on a port visit the day previous.
Speaker 1:We, you know again as a worrywart, I'm always just looking at, you know, open source, intelligent reports all over the world. Anyways, I see missile launches going from Iran into Israel, israel into Iran, right, and you know, ship gets immediate tasking. They, they go all ahead, flank out their port visit canceled. All this different stuff.
Speaker 1:I know that my wife is is likely going towards war, right, and you know, I know that she's scared, I know that I'm scared, I know that my family is scared and her family's scared, but kind of, the message to the plebes was like you know who else is was like you know who else is scared, you know who else is afraid. Your sailors, her sailors, right, and the mom and dad of those sailors, yes, and the whole point of the Naval Academy is going through that daily grind, is going through all those terrible things. So you can not only handle your own personal emotion and afraidness, but take on the burden of theirs. Yes, exactly, and so like that is that is the point, that is the purpose, like that is why we're here, this is why we're going through crucible events, so you can handle yourself and take on the burden of the fear of others, right, and and lead them and take care of them, right, it all comes back to taking care of your people.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And last thing, as we wrap up here I just had that exact conversation again with the plebs is hey, you have to figure you said it perfectly you have to figure out how to take care of your stuff so you can take care of your sailors, and you can't if their work is struggling because they have a family issue at home and they say, oh well, my mom's sick. Well, let me tell you about my mom and dad are both sick. They're both in the hospital. You think you got it bad, I got it bad.
Speaker 3:That's not the way it works and that's building the warrior ethos and resiliency of, yeah, taking this four years to where, yeah, you go on emergency leave. It's sad that you had a personal tragedy or whatever, but that's not an excuse just to fail all your classes. That's not an excuse not to get out of bed, because you can't do that. When you're out at sea, no one's interested in what you have going on and your troops definitely don't want to hear it. In fact, real quick story I went out to the desert and I replaced an Air Force 06.
Speaker 3:And when I got there, my XO said you know, he really, really was not liked because all he did was complain about how much he missed his family. And everybody said we miss our families too. Right, and this is an 06 who didn't get that right. So, as a leader, which is what you're going to be immediately, that's what's so fun about being a JO, right, you go as a leader and you get your butt kicked on a daily basis, but you're learning. But, yeah, no one cares about your stuff. You've got to be locked in and hopefully again through the crucible of the daily grind of the academy, you've learned how to do that. So when you get out there, you're ready to go.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah, I love it. This episode is going to go out over Plebe Parents Weekend that Sunday. Any words to the parents and maybe even the plebes who may be listening about again. I know we just talked about really the power and importance of these crucible events, but about completing plebs summer and getting ready to take on the academic year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess to the plebs it's absolutely worth it. It may not seem at the time, but there is a method to the madness. And so just, just again, just embrace. You know they say, embrace the suck, just just every single day. Realize there's probably 10 people that wanted your spot and any of them would trade places with you. So just do your best and just understand that this is all part of the plan.
Speaker 3:And to the parents just support them, right, support them and help them see the big picture. And, you know, let them vent a little bit. You know, if you get a letter that says I hate this place, you know, take it with a grain of salt, frame it right, but don't think that you've got to get involved. You know, let them vent and then support them and it's all going to be okay. And it really is a life-changing event to graduate from the Naval Academy with not only, you know, the alumni and the and the bond that you have with other classes, but you know we've got our 43 union coming up next fall, uh, and you're going to, we're going to, I'm going to see people I haven't seen in 25 years and I'm going to hug them like I saw him yesterday, and you don't get that experience from any other school, so I would tell them to hang in there. It's worth it.
Speaker 1:Jim, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it, love it Everyone. Again, if you want to read about these stories and how it relates to the Naval Academy, go check out the brand new book crucibles. We really appreciate it. Thanks for your time today. You bet.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 1:Have a good day everyone. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy insider podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
