The Twin Towers

America has always been different from other nations in the fact that we are not united via a similar racial identity but rather through a universal acknowledgement of certain irreversible truths and inalienable rights. We are a nation of a multitude of races, but one single idea. It is what makes us truly exceptional. Because of this, our citizens have historically been averse to warfare and have long cried for a policy of isolationism. It is truly a strange irony that a people that is united by such strong beliefs would long so much to be left alone by the troubles of the world.

It is for this very reason that we drape ourselves and our national conflicts in the trappings of liberating oppressed peoples, yearning to be free, from the clutches of tyranny. It is a psychological and societal need that we do so, lest we face the monstrosities of warfare itself. It is this need that we must use to summon the strength needed to venture into the maelstrom that is international warfare. We create symbols: heroes and villains, angels and demons. Traditionally, this has been easy. The Spanish-American War had the cruel, imperialist Spanish. World War I had the power-hungry Germans. World War II had the Nazis and the Japanese. Our enemies were  clear-cut; the world was black and white. Lines were drawn in the sand and we knew exactly where we stood.

But things changed drastically during Vietnam. The lines between non-combatants and soldiers became blurred, the reasons for fighting were never quite clear beyond some lip service paid to fighting Communism, and the American people were confronted with the true horrors of combat in near real time and soon grew a distaste for war. This left the men and women fighting deep in the jungles of Vietnam with little to call theirs beyond the physical and emotional scars inherit to men who have tasted battle. They came home — their spirits and bodies broken — to a public who not only did not understand them and their sacrifices but hated them for answering the call to duty. This left many of the returning veterans in a strange purgatory; searching for a symbol to rally around, to help ease the pain of their sacrifices, and to help bring closure. This symbol finally came with the placing of the Vietnam War Memorial on the National Mall.

Finally there was a means with which to put the cost of the war into real, concrete form; a large gash on the nation’s face. The names carved into its obsidian face placing the conflict in human terms. The polished stone acting almost as a mirror, allowing the viewer to peer deep into the abyss and come to terms with whatever demons that his memory may be harboring. It is a striking thing.

Living near Washington, DC, as I do, I’m fortunate to be able to travel to the National Mall when the mood suits me. The Vietnam War Memorial is hard to miss and it is very near the other attractions. It was over this past weekend that I decided to venture into our Nation’s capital for to take in the various Smithsonian museums that line the grassy fields of the Mall. As I walked through an exhibit at the American History Museum chronicling the story of the American Fighting Man, I was brought nearly to tears by the pieces from the Vietnam War and the Memorial. I was so disturbed that I quickly moved on; and rounded the corner to be instantly confronted by the grotesque hulk of a twisted girder from the World Trade Center.

My friend (a fellow VMI Alumnus) and I quickly fell into a reverent silence; our minds transporting us instantly to that day in September. The memories of awakening to the news that a plane had collided the World Trade Center that morning, and then turning on the television just in time to watch the second plane impact the other tower in an explosion of fire, flame, and glass. I remembered being entranced by the news reports the rest of the morning as I sat in a classroom in sunny, Southern California while my countrymen rose to the occasion on the East Coast. I remembered the emotions, the anger, the rage that boiled within me that day and still does. I remember hearing, for the first time, the clarion bugle of Duty singing my name. And I was not alone. My friend felt the same thing, as did the other Americans in the gallery who had been old enough to understand the events of that day.

And that was historical. It was a turning point in our history. We soon became embroiled in two wars that seem to lose their meaning as the day drag on, fighting for peoples who do not want our help, and shedding American blood while civilians back home protest the supposed evils of the American soldier. But, as I talk to my Brother Rats, fellow VMI Alumni, soldier, sailors, airmen, Marines, coast guardsmen, and other fellow proud Americans, the more and more clearly that those two towers will be my generation’s rallying flag. They are our symbol.

Burdening My Generation

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A Message for America’s Young‬‏ – YouTube.

 

Amidst the talk of all of the budget and national debt controversies currently saddling our national discourse during the last few months, it seems that the larger picture has been lost amongst the various political factions. With the Democratic Party trying their best to preserve unsustainable public welfare programs and the Republican Party doing what they can to keep tax rates unreasonably low, the fact that the mistakes of today won’t be paid by the politicians and current majority of the populace has been buried. It will not be my parents’ generation who will be paying off our current debt, numbered north of fourteen trillion dollars.

It’s this debt which will cripple my children and my children’s children. It’s this debt that will force my generation to enact draconian austerity measures that would make the current crop of Leftist politicians and mouthpieces blanche. And let us not even speak of the horrors a double-dip recession and/or depression would bring.

But with the majority of those in power seemingly all too happy to kick the proverbial can, it will fall upon those of my generation who are just now beginning to venture out into the world. It will be us who will have to make the hard decisions about our sovereign debt and whether or not we can afford to continue providing hand-outs to our parents’ generation during the sunset of their lives. It will be us who will have to deal with conflicts from the global economic collapse.

But all is not darkness. I have met and had the honor to work with many exceptional individuals amongst my peers and I am confident that we will be able to surmount the hurdles that will be thrown at us. Americans have faced hardship before and prospered, and I have no reason to believe that we won’t be able to do so again.

Visions of the Moon‬‏

YouTube – ‪JFK – We choose to go to the Moon, full length‬‏.

JFK was many things, but above all he was a visionary who could see the amazing things that America was capable of and inspire his fellow Americans to reach out and earn them. As I watched the final shuttle launch in our systems engineering lab at NASA GSFC today, I could feel the sorrow well up inside me as I watched the end of an era. The only question now is: Who will be our next JFK? Who will guide us into the new, glorious tomorrow where only the scope and breadth of our imaginations will limit the heights of our achievements.

For Strength!

Obama revisits his Irish roots – The Globe and Mail.

While I am a man that has not met a beer that I didn’t like; it appears that my Commander-in-Chief is not. Whether it be a stout, a lager, a pilsner, an ale, a porter, or a member of any of hops and barley family, I will drink it. My criteria for a good beer being that it must 1) be colder than room temperature and 2) be affordable; beyond that I’m an easy man to please. ‘Tis true though that the Guin’ is an acquired taste; but this picture still causes me to chuckle.

While the president’s and my own choices in malty refreshment might differ, I did like his one comment printed below:

“My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas.”

I must offer a tip of my hat to a fellow Guinness and Aviation enthusiast: Neptunus Lex.

Mulholland Drive

Growing up in Los Angeles was an exceptional experience. I didn’t realize it at the time, in fact, I ran from it as fast as I could. Looking back on it now, I realize that most of that running was due to my teenage yearning for freedom from my parents’ control and need to explore. Now that I have been transplanted three-thousand miles away, in a town lacking the same energy and vibrance as the City of Angels. Now I yearn to return to my city.

Anyway, the City of Los Angeles encompasses multiple different districts from the hustle and bustle of downtown, to the glamor of Brentwood and Beverly Hills, to the bluffs of Malibu, and the San Fernando Valley. Separating the glitz of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the Los Angeles that all non-Angelinos dream about from The Valley are the Santa Monica Mountains. The mountains themselves are rather pedestrian, covered in shrubs and wild grass and houses. But the real beauty is a stretch of tarmac running along the ridge line called Mulholland Drive. This is what it looks like in the daytime:

It doesn’t look like much, but stretching from the Hollywood Freeway to Sepulveda Boulevard, it offers the car enthusiast one of the best driving experiences in the world. As it winds its way through the hills, bordered by precipitous drops down the hillside, it provides breathtaking vistas for anyone truly interested in gazing upon the fair city below.

As with most things in life, Mulholland Drive isn’t perfect. You see, those nasty rumors about the gridlock of Los Angeles traffic just so happen to be true and seeing as this masterfully sculpted lane is situated between major thoroughfares between both sides of the city, it is nearly always blocked with a multitude of cars during the daytime. Which left my teenage self and my compadres with a dilemma. We fancied ourselves automotive aficionados; living for the thrill of a quarter mile, the ecstasy of a proper canyon run, and that most allusive of highs: speed. Velocity. Quickness. Rapidity. It didn’t matter what you called it, we chased it, like an addict chases after his next fix. We were young and very foolish, and nearly paid the price for it quite a few times. And one of our favorite places to bathe ourselves in the siren song of screeching tires was Mulholland Drive. But what ever were we to do in order to combat the evil that was rush hour traffic?

Being the inventive young lads that we were, we surmised that we would simply drive Mulholland when the traffic was not there: nighttime. We congratulated ourselves on our brilliance and set out the next available evening. We were young and invincible, and showed utter contempt for the darkness that had encircled our road of choice. But that evening, and all evenings after that, our chutzpah was rewarded by our city, with views like these:

Our city was beautiful from above. It amazed us, and provided the perfect backdrop as we carved out corners in the Hollywood Hills. And to this day, the nighttime view from Mulholland Drive is one of the things I long to see again most. It is how I remember the City of Angels, the city of my childhood.

Los Angeles will forever hold captive a special place in my heart. It’s diverse culture and life will always beckon me. It is such a wonderful city. It is my city.

On Cartoons

YouTube – Cab Calloway St. James Infirmary by Fleischer

My senior year in high school I signed up for a cinematography class (one of the benefits of growing up in Los Angeles) in order to fulfill a graduation requirement for a fine arts elective (another benefit of going to school in a Liberal state). To make a long story short, due to a clerical error, I ended up in an animation class. Now, I’ve never been a particularly good drawer, cartoonist, or painter; so it was with quite a bit of trepidation that I decided not to switch out of the class. The real deciding factor was the fact that one of my best friends had signed up for the class with me, and I wasn’t going to leave him high and dry. That, and it had a reputation as an easy class, which would allow me to keep my commitment to focus my senior year on friends, football, and fun.

So, there I was on the first day, forced to confront the horrendous disconnect between the copiously-detailed visions in my head and my left hand’s ability to translate them into an image on a sketch pad. I have always been a man of words, even though I spent a good portion of my teenage years running from it. The pictures in my mind are just as vivid as any of Picasso’s or Renoir’s, but my medium is the written word, using adjectives, verbs, nouns, and all the others to paint the perfect portrait. My drawings on the other hand were all childish.

But as nervous as I was, the first day proved that most of the rest of my fellow students had the same approximate level of cartoonist ability as I did. To make matters even better, our teacher was a cartoonist-turned-English teacher who looked as if he had just come back from catching some early morning waves. His long blond hair and laid-back attitude put me at ease.

Anyway, in order to showcase different styles of animation and to educate us on the history of animation, he would pull old cartoons from the vaults and play them for us. These were the true golden standards of cartooning, from back in the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties, when great men like Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng made them.

One of the cartoons he showed one day was the parent of the clip pasted above. It’s from an old Betty Boop reel and features caricatured Cab Calloway singing the Saint James Infirmary Blues. I was captivated from the moment I laid eyes on the screen. Cab’s haunting voice paired with the surreal imagery thrilled me. It inspired me, the tune playing endlessly in my head for the rest of the day.

Since that day, I’ve searched the whole wide world over trying to find the cartoon as it is a personal favorite of mine. Having stumbled across it this evening, I have been in a wash of nostalgia, reminiscing about my high school days.

“But how did you fare in the class?” You, my beloved reader, might ask. Well, I can tell you quite plainly that hours of hard work and diligence honed my drawing abilities. Also, the cartoon cemented Cab Calloway’s version of the Saint James Infirmary Blues on my favorites list in iTunes. So in the end, it all came up spades.

We’re Losing The Space Race Again

via xkcd: 65 Years.

The alternate text for the image:

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there’s no good reason to go into space–each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.

As I’ve said before, we must continue our exploration of space. All of our accomplishments here on earth come to naught if we don’t reach out and expand the grasp of the human race. One day, a few billion years hence, our sun will engulf our terrestrial orb and life will cease. When that day comes, we cannot allow Homo sapiens sapiens to go quietly into that dark night, we must have solidified a beachhead on multiple other worlds. But sadly, it seems we’re stuck in our short-sighted, “rational,” political game. If only we could achieve world peace and learn to work together.

Also, for those with technical inclinations in need of a good chuckle, XKCD always delivers.

The Immortal 600

A few days ago, I recounted the story of my Great-Great-Great Uncle, Ozniah Brumley, and his involvement as a member of the Immortal 600. Well, I’ve stumbled upon some more information concerning them, and felt I should pass it along. The first is an account of their experiences under fire in Charleston, as told by 1st Lieutenant George Finley of the 56th Virginia Infantry. The second is a link to the website of the local detachment of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Georgia who have championed the cause of the Immortals. The third is a long history of the Immortal 600 from HistoryNet. And last but not least are three books: one which list the entire roster of the Immortals and two which tell the tale of the Immortals. They are shown below:

The Biographical Roster of the Immortal 600

The Immortal 600: A Story of Cruelty to Confederate Prisoners of War

Immortal Captives: The Story of Confederate Officers and the United States Prisoner of War Policy

The least we can do, is to keep the memory of these brave men alive. The Civil War is a great wound upon our nation’s history, with brother exacting vengeance upon brother. Through our understanding of the War’s history and its atrocities, we can prevent another such conflict from ever arising.

Captain Ozniah R. Brumley

As many Americans of Scots-Irish or German heritage, I have ancestors who fought in the War of Northern Aggression American Civil War. And like many of my fellow Southerners, I take great interest in my great grandfathers and great uncles who fought for the Confederate States of America. But unlike most of my fellow Southerners, I have ancestors who fought for the Union, and interestingly enough, fought against my Souther ancestors. My father’s side of the family hail from Pennsylvania and Indiana. Those from Pennsylvania served as officers in the Pennsylvania cavalry at Gettysburg; but I’ll reserve the tales of my Yankee ancestry for another day.

Instead, during the sesquicentennial of the War Between the States, I would rather tell the tale of my ancestors who wore the Confederate Gray. Though I was born in Chicago and grew up in Los Angeles, I have been traveling back to the ancestral homeland of my mother’s family in Cabarrus County, North Carolina, since I was but a small babe. As such, I have always felt a deep connection to my Southern heritage and the Southern cause. Those feelings were only intensified by my attending that most quintessential of Southern schools. Because of this, I’ve cultivated a keen interest in the exploits of my family throughout American history, specifically those who went to war to defend the homeland they loved and performed their duty, as they understood it. This interest has turned up some very interesting stories throughout the years as I research my lineage.

None of these stories are quite as interesting or tragic as that of my Great-Great-Great-Uncle Ozniah R. Brumley, Captain, B Company, 20th North Carolina Infantry, CSA. Captain Brumley enlisted on 21 April 1961 along with his two brothers at the ripe, old age of twenty-two. He was made a sergeant in B Company of the 20th North Carolina Infantry, the Cabarrus Guards. Unfortunately, tragedy would follow the Brumleys throughout their campaigning under the command of Robert Edward Lee as only the man who later became my great-great-great-grandfather would live to return to his native soil. One of his brothers would die in a hospital in Richmond of causes unknown and his other brother, Ozniah, would meet death as a prisoner of war.

Ozniah served honorably in the campaigns of the  Army of Northern Virginia. He must have been at least a decent soldier as he received a battlefield commission on 26 April 1862, barely a year after his enlistment. He was even promoted to 1st Lieutenant and later Captain. Sadly, fate would strike a cruel blow on 1 July 1863 as that was the day that Ozniah was captured at Gettysburg. As a prisoner, he would spend the rest of the war being starved and tortured by Yankees bent on vengeance for purported war crimes committed against Union prisoners at Confederate prisons at Andersonville and Salisbury.

Though his existence was hellish, it was in captivity that Captain Brumley would leave his mark upon American history. It was in captivity that he would serve as a member of the Immortal 600.

On 20 August 1864, Ozniah was moved to Morris Island at the mouth of Charleston Harbor. Here, he and 599 other Confederate soldiers would be used as human shields by the Union in an attempt to silence the Confederate batteries at Fort Sumter. Here, he would endure forty-five days of Confederate shelling and starvation rations. After suffering in Charleston, the Immortal 600 were shipped to Fort Pulaski in Georgia to spend the Winter of 1864-1865 in the cold, cramped casements of the fort. They were also starved, subsisting on a ration of cornmeal and pickles. It was here at Fort Pulaski that my Great-Great-Great-Uncle took his final post, finally succumbing to disease and starvation on 4 March 1865, only a month before the end of the war. He is buried somewhere on the grounds of Fort Pulaski, alongside his other countrymen who did their duty, as they understood it, to last.

Man’s Next Small Step

With NASA’s space shuttle program drawing to a close and the planned moon missions cancelled, the future of manned space flight is unclear. The space program has long been one of America’s most cherished projects; but we’ve long lacked the will to use the program properly. Which is quite ironic, given the fact that our country was founded by explorers and radical thinkers.

Over forty years ago, a humble man from Ohio set his boot onto the moon. It was a culmination of a decade of hard work that had been fraught with danger and had used every resource our country could provide. In the process some of the most brilliant minds in the world used all of the technology available to them — more often than not, inventing what they needed as they went — to accomplish the goals that had been laid out by a young, visionary president, who embodied all of the hope of a generation. Those goals were to go where no man had gone before, and then to return safely to tell the tale. So, after a decade of design errors, exploding rockets, near-catastrophic disasters, and the loss of three astronauts, two men from the United States became the first humans to tread upon extraterrestrial soil.

But almost as soon as the celebrations had ended, the American public lost interest. Their focus turned to a conflict in Southeast Asia that had taken a turn for the worst, spilling much American blood with little to show for it. Their concerns about economic uncertainty due to stagnation and recession. When tragedy struck in April of 1970, the public’s eyes were again focused on the space program, but this time they were more concerned for the fate of their heroes risking all in the heavens above. It was Apollo 13, and later the Challenger and Columbia disasters, which would bring home the dangers inherent in exploring uncharted territory. And these would prove trying to America at large. When the only time they were reminded of the existence of the space program was when lives were lost or costly mistakes were made, the general public began to question just how practical the expenditure of money was on spaceflight. And so NASA’s budget was slowly eroded, and it’s future plans cancelled one by one.

So now we’re left with the prospect of once again being trapped earthbound, with the only countries capable of sending a man into space being Russia or China. But how do we get ourselves out of this mess? At risk of over-simplifying the issue, the best way to return to space is to commercialize low-earth orbit and then letting NASA reclaim it’s rightful position as the organization dedicated to the exploration of outer space, instead of letting it languish in its current state. By providing incentives, the government can help the private sector find an inexpensive, reliable, and hassle-free route into space. And let us not kid ourselves, private industry is the only group capable of reaching that particular end state, as their necessity to turn a profit requires that that they keep costs low and not kill customers. Also, with NASA freed to pour all of it’s resources into exploration and not commercial interests (i.e. putting communications satellites into orbit), it can once again focus on flying to the moon and then onto mars.

That exploration won’t be easy, though. There will be risks, and lives will be lost, but that is just the nature of the beast. It will also require visionaries and brilliant minds to sort out the problems inherent in space travel. But most of all, it will require the political will and determination of the American people to accept the loss of life and expense of capital in order to venture into the far depths of space. The only way to do that is to inspire them to turn their gaze skyward and to dream like their forefathers did.

Ut Prosim

We at VMI have always had a rivalry with the boys down the road at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Virginia Tech having been founded by a VMI Alumnus, afterall. While Tech had nationally ranked football teams, we at the true and proper military school took pride in the fact (Read: Griped, bitched, moaned, and boasted) that we had it tougher than those sissies in Blacksburg. The rivalry was only exacerbated by the many years Turkey Bowls which pitted the vaunted Hokies against those most valiant beloved sons of the Commonwealth. To this day, we gentlemen (and now ladies) of Lexington do happily maintain that we will rise to any challenge that the Hokies would provide.

But no matter how heated our rivalry has become over the years, it has always been friendly. Virginia Tech has always proven a refuge for those prisoners of the Mother I, and we Keydets have always been amicable and magnanimous, in return. No other day in Virginia history has better illustrated the great bond and friendship between the two Corps of Cadets than that black day in April when a very troubled man decided to exorcise the demons in his head the only way he knew how. When news of the massacre reached us in Lexington, many were shell shocked and calls rang from the stoop for each Cadet to take pick up his rifle and trek to Blacksburg because our comrades in arms needed reinforcements.

In the aftermath, each Keydet did what he or she could do; offering prayers, support to friends caught too close to the action, and even sending envoys Southward to pass along our sincerest sympathies and condolences. It was a day when, truly, the sons and daughters of Virginia (even those of us from out of state) banded together as one. We provided an honor guard for the funeral of one of the Blacksburg Corps’ own, Cadet Matthew Joseph LaPorte.

As law enforcement agencies slowly sift through the debris of that wretched day, they have uncovered stories and evidence of acts of heroism and bravery. Such is now the case for Cadet LaPorte. Staring death itself in the face, Cadet LaPorte was called to action. Confronted with withering gunfire and no chance of escape, Cadet LaPorte leapt from his seat and attempted to subdue the gunman. Amidst his efforts, Cadet LaPorte was gunned down, giving his life in service to his fellow Hokies. Cadet LaPorte’s actions on that day were in the finest traditions of the VPI Corps of Cadets and in keeping with the storied actions of other beloved Sons of Virginia. May he rest in peace.

 

Hat tip to CDR Salamander.

Mama Told Johnny Not To Go Downtown

There’s an old running cadence (See: Jodie) in which a concerned mother warns her son not to venture into the urban population center of some unnamed city because the big, bad recruiter was hanging around. The song is reminiscent of the days of Vietnam, when you could walk down to ye olde local recruiter’s station and be on a bus headed for one of the happiest places on earth the next day (See: Parris Island, Fort Benning, Great Lakes, etcetera). Unfortunately for those still gung-ho about a military career these days, it’s no longer that easy.

With all of the talk of budget cuts and drawdowns, the military is starting to lower the amount of accessions they take on. What this means is, that yours truly has had to fight an uphill battle of sorts to get in. At present count, it’s taken three applications to Annapolis, three for a contract with Naval ROTC, and two tries with applying for direct accession (See: O C S). Luckily, I managed to snag a spot on my second try with the selection board. What has followed my selection (Called “Professional Recommendation”) has been a mountain of paperwork, a thorough investigation into my lengthy medical history, and a security clearance background check. Much to my chagrin, the Navy Medical Community has proved to be rather ornery and sticklers for tidy paperwork. I can’t say I blame them, seeing as how their approval could mean that I will be lent the keys to a pointy-nosed, fire-breathing, fighter/attack aircraft. It is not a decision to be made lightly.

I must say though, that the experience has been very much like that of wooing a woman. Just like courting a fine lass, the military has multiple hoops that a man must jump through in order to prove himself worthy. There are reams of forms and boiler plate that cover all kinds of topics ranging from your birthplace and citizenship to your education background and religious preference. All of this paperwork is then submitted to the selection board which is composed of men and women who hail from the warfare community that you are applying to join (I selected Student Naval Aviator, naturally). You see, when dealing with direct accessions in the Navy, you must apply to a specific warfare community (Surface Warfare, Submarine Service, Civil Engineering Corps, Special Operations, etcetera) and if they have an opening for you and you are qualified, they will accept you in. It’s not dissimilar from applying for a job working for General Electric or Ford.

Once you have secured a professional recommendation from the board, the real fun begins. The two major hurdles standing between the selectee and his final orders to Naval Station Newport are an extensive security background check and a visit to the wonderful world of MEPS (See: Military Entrance Processing Station). The background check is to ensure that you are a trustworthy enough individual to be allowed the supreme privilege of handling the country’s secrets. Naturally, it covers employment history, places of residence, citizenship information, and whether or not you’ve ever been a member of an organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Ironically, there is a section asking about any contact you may have had with anyone of foreign disposition. The questions are run of the mill: Do you have any foreign contacts? Have you advised or supported foreign businesses? Have you ever had contact with officials of a foreign government? The answers available gave me a chuckle, though, as the respondent has the ability to answer “Yes,” “No,” or “Official Govt. Business.” Your humble author was mightily tempted to check the latter option, seeing as how he is a fan of literature of the cloak and dagger variety.

If the applicant is not yet exhausted from amount of paperwork required to apply for a security clearance, then he will undoubtedly be fatigued by the ordeal that is a standard MEPS visit. MEPS pairs the joys of paperwork with the excitement of a thorough medical examination. Contrary to popular belief, the rumors of the dreaded “oil check” are greatly exaggerated. Anyway, MEPS takes an exceedingly long time, and even more so if you have a lengthy medical history.

Once you have been blessed by Navy Medicine and whatever shadowy organization performs security background checks, you receive your Final Select letter which is the document where one signs their life away on the dotted line. And as soon as you place your John Hancock on that piece of paper, you’re property of the U.S. Navy.

So what advice do I have for those trying to make it as a Naval Officer? One, don’t ever give up hope. Two, document everything, because you never know when you might need a piece of documentation to prove something.