#139 Plebe Summer Detailer Turnover and Second Set Expectations

Halfway through Plebe Summer, the faces change but the pressure doesn’t. We’re talking about detailer turnover at the United States Naval Academy, the moment when the first set of upperclass midshipmen hands the training mission to a new group for second set. A lot of families hear “first set breaks you down, second set builds you back up” and assume that means the back half is easier. I want to correct that before it creates false hope or extra stress when the letters come home.

I explain Plebe Summer as a six-week training program with progressive load. The early days feel like chaos because everything is new, so failure is constant and the discomfort is intense. By the time second set arrives, plebes have a foundation, which means the expectations can climb fast. Second set “builds” by reinforcing standards until they become habits, then tightening the details because now everyone knows what right looks like. That’s why it can feel tougher, not softer.

We also get into the underappreciated dynamic of the new detailers finding their rhythm while plebes finally recognize patterns, plus the culminating events that drive team camaraderie and competition: track smoker, boxing smoker, rates competition, drill competitions, and more evaluations that feed into company pride. If you’re a parent or supporter, we close with practical context for why your plebe’s experience may shift sharply based on a new squad leader, even when the program stays the same. Subscribe, share this with a Plebe Summer family, and leave a review with the question you still have about turnover.

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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 matches service academy families with trusted real estate teams all across the country.  Text (650) 282-1964 with any real estate questions.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Turnover Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast. Today's episode is all going to be about the second set of pleep summer. And pleep summer, we call it detailer turnover. Because if you're not aware, I'm sure the large majority of you are, but basically the pleep summer detail, again, the upper class midshipmen who are going to be acting as the trainers and again, quite literally the detailers of pleep summer. Another term you'll hear often is cadre. Usually, again, when it's related to the Naval Academy specifically, we utilize the term detailer to reference the upper class midshipmen that are a part of the pleep summer detail.

What Detailer Turnover Means

SPEAKER_00 0:38

About halfway through pleep summer, the detailers who did the first half of pleep summer, the first set of pleep summer, turnover with a new group of midshipmen that come in and finish and do the second half of pleep summer. This one is particularly like relevant and special to me because when I was a detailer, um I was a second set detailer. I was the regimental commander of Pleep Summer for the second set of pleep summer. So again, from basically that like, you know, week three and a half until the very end when you have the academic reform. That's what I was involved in. And for me, that was like a really special part and place in Plebeep Summer to be able to have midshipmen who have already kind of been through that first three weeks, who have gone through that initial shock, and now we're in the secondary process of just completely getting them ready for the start of the academic year.

Second Set Isn’t Easier

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And even in the way that I phrased it, um, this is kind of the thing that I want to talk about specifically because I see a lot in lots of different conversations. I hear it anecdotally, um, where people talk about how the first set of plebe summer, it's like first set is designed to break you down, and then second set is designed to build you back up. And like while while I understand the sentiment, I feel like too often that gets confused is like somehow now second set is easier, or second set is better, or second set is not as hard, which couldn't be farther from the truth. And so if you were kind of hoping, like, oh man, I'm hoping that you know my son, my daughter, my plebe uh has an a better go of it or an easy go or easier go of it uh during the second half, um, I don't think that's actually gonna be the case. And that's kind of the first thing that I wanna talk about here, because I encourage you to think about pleep summer um as a six-week training program, right? If you were gonna hire a personal trainer and you were gonna go through a six-week workout program and then just translate this to pleep summer, right? In the first week, you're learning new exercises, you're doing something you've never done for the first time, and you're gonna fail a ton. You're not gonna understand it, you're gonna need instruction, you're gonna mess stuff up constantly, and it's gonna be really uncomfortable. You're gonna be probably the most sore you're ever gonna be during that first week because you're doing something new, you're figuring it out, you're doing new movements, uh, you haven't put your body through this stress yet. And as a result, you're kind of the most sore, it's the most difficult, it's kind of the most uh jarring experience because it's something that you haven't done. It's that culture shock, it's a change of way of life, it's it's change, just in general, it's change. But when you go through and you get to week four and then week five and then week six, like yes, you are being built back up, but that's not because it gets easier, right? The weights get heavier, you do more reps, or you know, there's slight adjustments that make it an increased load, but it's an increased load that you're able to handle because you've been doing it for three weeks, right? And that's kind of this idea of second set, which is when you're breaking someone back down to build them back up, you don't build them up by letting off the gas of what you've done in the first three weeks. You build them back up by continuing to reinforce the standards and habits that you were, again, breaking. And you're breaking these kind of civilian habits, you're establishing a foundation for new military ones. And then in order to really make them stick, you are day in, day out doing the exact same thing, the same difficulty, the same like level of intensity, and you are making sure that they hold that standard in order for it to become habit, for it to become a part of their life, right? And so um, that's where I just want to like clear up any misconceptions that happen a lot during this process. Again, you know, first set breaks you down, second set builds you back up. Building you back up doesn't mean like easy. Building you back up doesn't mean like the the the idea of plebe summer changes. The overall mission of plebe summer, again, we've talked about this a lot, I've had multiple episodes. I encourage you to go back and listen. It is designed to provide a defining experience, a defining leadership experience, that crucible event for these young men and women to take a civilian and by the end of the six-week period turn them into a basically trained midshipman who is ready to start the academic year. And in order to do that, that breaking down of habits and establishing of new habits requires hard, dedicated, disciplined work day in, day out for those whole six weeks, right? So you have a new set of detailers, but it doesn't become easier necessarily. Again, you're continuing to do the same things, you're continuing to make it happen. And honestly, it's probably more difficult because now this second set of detailers has a much higher standard, a much higher expectation because you're no longer figuring it out. You know what you're supposed to do, and we know what you're supposed to do. Now we can really like nitpick the small details and make sure that you are doing them extremely well. That is the difference, right? Again, you take this blank slate, or really you take a civilian, a normal person, you try and break all of those habits to turn them into a blank slate. You kind of build then that foundational layer, and then you from there, the second set comes in and takes that foundational layer and really reinforces all the habits they need to be a midshipman at the start of the academic year, right? And again, I I use this term. Pleep summer, first set is designed to take someone from zero to one, right? Like you are trying to go from no knowledge to a foundation, and then second set is trying to take them from one to ten, right? Like now that we have a foundation, now we can build, now we can teach, now we can instruct, now we can reinforce those habits over and over and over again. And that's where the term build up comes from, right? Like you build them back up, but the misconception is that building them back up is like a comfort thing, or it's an easier thing, or that it's an adjustment, but rather it's just the continued reinforcing of standards and habits that happens. And so that's the first piece that I want to talk about. I know detailer turnover happened last week. You're likely gonna hear again in future letters or maybe even a future phone call, uh, stories of the new detailers or the turnover or the changeover. And I just wanted to address the topic a little bit and discuss some of those small intricacies and items. Um, you know, I think what's

New Detailers And Higher Standards

SPEAKER_00 7:25

funny is that, you know, the detailer part of this is really interesting. Because when I talk about the fact that plebs go from like knowing nothing to now knowing something, what's funny is that like when the detailers change over and the detailers turn over, the detailers are trying to figure it out for the first time because they've never been detailers before normally, again, a lot of the squad leaders have never been detailers before. And so they're trying to figure it out from day one. And I always thought that like that was a really entertaining thing. Because for first set, the detailers have no idea what's going on, but the plebs have no idea what's going on. So they don't know that the detailers have no idea what's going on. When you get to second set, a lot of times, like you're in such a rhythm routine, you know how it all goes, you know the structure, you know the format, you know how the days go. There'll be times where like a detailer will say something, and like for the first time, please will be like, they'll kind of like look around and be like, you know, you know, stick out a paw, like, you sure? And uh that was always interesting as a as a detailer because you're like you're trying to maintain and hold that credibility, but you know, that first day or two, maybe even three days, you're trying to like get in the rhythm and figure out the routine as well. Um, and so that can be like a pretty funny dynamic as the as that works through and goes on.

Culminating Events And Company Competition

SPEAKER_00 8:39

For the second set of pleep summer as well, again, as we talk about like building up, um, you know, there's some different evolutions as well. Like there, there are there are some slightly different changes because everything is culminating, right? And I think that's like the big piece of this six-week crucible event, this six-week journey as well, is everything is culminating towards the end of second set, right? You're gonna have, uh again, maybe what I mean by that is there's gonna be more team camaraderie. And when we say build back up, there's gonna be more team camaraderie, there's gonna be more competition, there's gonna be more unit level competition against other companies, other units, other platoons. Um, for example, a couple of events that, again, likely, and I'm not sure about the exact details on timing for this pleep summer. Um, but there's a chance by the second phone call that um, you know, you're having these culminating events. There's a thing called the track smoker where all of the platoons compete and a literal track meet, right? And a lot of times the recruited track athletes who are a part of each company will compete and go out there, but you don't have to be a recruited track athlete. If you did some kind of event in high school and you want to compete, you have the opportunity to go compete in this track smoker. Um, there's a boxing smoker. If you're someone who's chosen boxing as your sports period sport that you go to, there's a little literal, like you will go over into alumni hall. There will be a boxing event and multiple, you know, bouts throughout the evening, and people are competing and trying to represent their company. Um, there's a literal rates competition where you know each platoon will basically nominate someone, they're the person who knows the rates the best, they'll nominate them to kind of do it. It's almost like a spelling bee, right? Like I kid you now, it's like a spelling bee, but with rates. Um, and they ask you a rate and you have to like repeat it verbatim, and if you get it wrong, you're out. If you get it right, you continue to move on to the next round. And it was always fascinating to see like some of the stuff these kids are able to retain. It was nuts because again, as the Reg Commander of Second Set, like I was always like, you know, I guess as a result, I had to judge a lot of these things. Like I was kind of in there sitting and and judging and going through everything, and I was constantly amazed at the level of knowledge and the amount of information they were able to retain in their brains, um, you know, through this whole process and whole time. So um, again, the rates competition was something that I thought was really cool and you know may lead to good stories. There's also a drill competition. Um, and so this is literally like the brigade drill master. It's usually a Marine Corps gunnery sergeant, um, sometimes a staff sergeant, but like again, a senior enlisted Marine Corps um individual who has training, who has previously been a drill instructor uh, you know, at the Navy or the Marine Corps, like enlisted boot camp as well. They'll come and they'll judge a drill competition. And these are these are like again, when I say drill, um, there's actually a whole episode about it. Uh I encourage you to go back and listen to that as well. You can you can find it to you know, discover what we're all talking about, but a lot of rifle movements, marching, um, you know, those different aspects. When you see a parade, when you go to those formal parades, a lot of that stuff, a lot of those movements are what we refer to as drill. Um, and so there's a there's an actual drill competition. Um and then a lot of these things, your performance at you know, the squad combat course, your performance um at the O course and the E course, and a lot of these different things are being evaluated as well towards your your kind of you being the color company of Plebe Summer. And so all of these things kind of hit a culminating event. And so, you know, again, when we say build back up as well, like there is that aspect where again, you are building back up as a team, as a unit. You are competing, you are going out and trying to be the best you can be amongst the entirety of the plebe regiment. Um, and so you have that aspect. Again, my big thing is I just don't want you to be confused that like somehow like plebe summer gets better or like plebe summer gets easier, right? Like, certainly not the case. It's the same stuff over and over and over again. You are reinforcing those habits. Um, but there are some, you know, more team camaraderie events, more competition, more evaluation, uh, which can be very cool.

How New Leaders Change The Experience

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So that leads me to kind of again, the next time you get these opportunities to have questions, right? I think this is going to be a relatively short episode. I just want to talk about the fact quite literally that there will be a changeover of detailers between the first set and the second set. Um, you know, with any transition, uh, things can change. Um, you know, I and I mean this genuinely, like at the end of the day, while we all have a baseline level of training, while we all have um, you know, certain standards that we have to meet, um, every human is different. Every individual is different. And some people may be better and some may be people, some people may be worse. And what you view as better or worse may be different between individual to individual. And so it's a long way to say your plea may have a different experience. Their squad leader between first set and second set may drastically impact in either a positive or negative way their experience between first set and second set. And so, as you're just aware and you're hearing stories and you're reading letters, as things start to come through, it's possible that like when they're referencing their squad leader, they're referencing their platoon commander, that that person has changed, right? And as a result of that change, they may now, it may be way better, it may be way worse, it may be tougher, but tougher and good, and it may be, you know, tougher and bad. And so there are a lot of different segments that adjust here. And so I just want to give you kind of the context and awareness as a family, as a parent, as you know, whatever the case is, that these things may be adjusting. There may be changes, and those changes may be good, bad, and different. All right. And so um, those are kind of the big things we got going

Reach Out For Support And Closing

SPEAKER_00 14:36

there. As we wrap this episode up, um, you know, I've been very blessed, um, genuinely, uh, very blessed to have had people reach out when they've received uh a bad letter from their, you know, their plebe or their plebe is entered tango company. Um open invitation. Again, I I am very busy, so I apologize if I don't get back to you immediately. Um, but I'll do my best to always, you know, provide my advice, my thoughts, my comfort, my empathy for the situation and try and help. So again, if that is you and your world, please feel free to reach out. I'd be more than happy to talk to you about your situation. Um, you know, it's it's it's part of the journey. Um and so if I can ever be a resource in that way, let me know. Um, otherwise, I hope you all enjoyed this. I hope this was a brief, quick, um, you know, enjoyable lesson into this experience. And uh, I hope you all have a good day. Thanks. 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.