50 Stories for 50 Years of Women at USNA — Post 20 I grew up at the Naval Academy. Not as a midshipman. As a kid. My father was in the Navy, and on Sunday afternoons, the obstacle course at Hospital Point was a playground. The rope wall. The big wooden structures. My friends and I would swing, hang, and run through them for the pure fun of it. I should have known better than…
Leave a CommentTag: leadership
Wedgie War
Published June 8, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years of Women at USNA — Post 19 There is a particular feeling that comes before impending chaos in Bancroft Hall. Not a sound, exactly. More like a change in frequency. A rumble, then something electric in the air. If Bancroft were a forest, you would see it in the animals first – the way they stop, ears up, and begin fleeing before the fire is seen. Before the smoke. Like…
Leave a CommentThe Table I Sat At
Published June 1, 2026
50 Posts for 50 Years of USNA — Post [18] My roommate and I were not leaders. At least not officially. In my senior year at the Naval Academy, we were ranked dead last in our peer group for leadership positions. She was second to last. I was last. We had both endured our share of come-arounds as plebes, and neither of us was particularly motivated to inflict on others what we had resented receiving.…
4 CommentsLOUDER
Published May 18, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | On come-arounds, collapsing mid-song, and what happens when development and punishment share a room. Tucked inside the little book every plebe carried everywhere, Reef Points, our pocket-sized bible of professional knowledge, were the things we were expected to know cold. Ship terminology. Naval history. The chain of command. Customs and courtesies. Rates. You were tested on all of it. Formally, in class. Informally, in the passageway, where any upperclassman could…
Leave a CommentJe Ne Comprends Pas Le Wiz
Published May 4, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | #14 There are class ranks, and then there are rooms that don’t care about them. French class was one of those rooms. At the Naval Academy, class year is everything. It shapes how you walk, where you eat, and how you are addressed. I was a plebe.That word meant something, something loud and specific and constant. It meant you were at the bottom, and the bottom was a place…
Leave a CommentThe Law I Couldn’t Keep
Published April 27, 2026
Plebe Summer tested everything I thought I knew about my body and my will. The academic year tested something else entirely. I was up before dawn for swim practice. Even after validating some courses, the math and science requirements were formidable. A roommate conflict added friction to the hours I was supposed to call rest. But none of that was the heaviest weight. The heaviest weight was private. I heard myself curse. I heard myself…
5 Comments