<p>I came across some stuff on a parent's page that I thought was good food for thought as many of you consider the options between an Academy and a civilian college...</p>
<p>There really ARE reasons for Plebe Summer/Plebe year!</p>
<p>A story by Jim Peden: </p>
<p>Many plebe parents may be still struggling with understanding why the USNA keeps unrelenting pressure on our Mids, including things like learning the rates and constantly demanding nothing but perfection in their recitation. The following true story may give you some insights as to why everything the USNA does has a purpose, arguably invaluable in time of combat. </p>
<p>My old heavy gun cruiser, the USS Newport News CA148, while serving on the gun line in Viet Nam, suffered a catastrophic premature detonation of a round in the barrel of the center gun of turret 2 which instantly killed 18
men in the turret. The resulting fire and smoke injured another 34 seamen and officers.</p>
<p>But it was a junior officer, a relatively green engineering LTJG, who quickly evaluated the situation amidst all the fire and smoke and confusion, and gave the order to flood the magazine. Yes, a junior officer not long out of training -- not the Captain of the ship -- gave the order which most likely saved the entire ship and 1400 other crew on board. A later autopsy of two men in the magazine revealed water in their lungs before they died, so this young officer had made the life-and-death decision which sadly, but absolutely necessarily, added two additional fatalities to the total in order to save the lives of more than a thousand others. Just imagine yourself with such a responsibility only a couple of years out of a civilian college where life was relaxed and sleep was plentiful.</p>
<p>Combat aboard a US Navy Vessel is one of the busiest places on earth. The winners are the ones whose officers and crew react instinctively, drawing on their training and their perfect memory of the immediate action required to
meet virtually any combat contingency. Many of our young men and women will possibly face combat in the future, and when they do, they will react with the best training available anywhere in the world... that learned at the
USNA. They will remember without thinking the immediate action required to prevail, and they will win... in no small part because way back when they were plebes, they learned their rates, and learned them well.</p>
<p>Our young mids are being trained to perform perfectly under stress than few civilians can comprehend. Learning to quickly and perfectly memorize endless lists - be it lunch menus or man-overboard procedures, is but one of
the many skills which will pay off immeasurably for them when they get to the fleet. The US Navy and the USNA knows what they are doing, just trust the system and your mid will emerge with the skills and confidence which
will help keep America safe for the next 30 or 40 years or more.</p>
<hr>
<p>Here's a story from the Army side. This is a commonality to all the military branches. </p>
<p>(Now LTC Friesen)
Author, Major Bo Friesen USMA 83 (15 Jun 99)</p>
<p>I'd like to chime in with my two cents on the 4th Class System, as I experienced it. My plebe year was during 79-80 and, although it was probably not as draconian as that of the more senior members of this forum, it appears to be considerably different from what exists today.</p>
<p>As I went through it, I did not understand how cutting a pie into nine equal pieces would help an officer lead soldiers into battle. The myriad of disjointed memorizations, ludicrous tasks and perpetual panic mode seemed to have very little to do with the profession of arms. I maintained this attitude throughout my upper class years and I was definitely not a flamer, although fairly stern and consistent. I kept this perspective as a junior officer ... right up to the moment I commanded a cavalry troop in the Gulf War.</p>
<p>One night, at around 0100, we conducted a passage of lines to assault an airfield. We had gone almost 60 hours without sleep and it was raining with a vengeance (yes, rain in the desert ... lots of it). Our own artillery was falling short and landing amongst us, one of my platoon leaders was heading off in a tangent to the direction he should have been following, the squadron main body was drifting too far north, my driver was heading straight for a ravine, a tank in my 4th platoon threw a track, we found ourselves in the middle of one of our own DPICM minefields, the objective was spotted on our right flank (instead of in front of us, where it should have been), almost no maps existed for our area of operations, my boss was perpetually screaming for me to change to his frequency (an impossibility with the wonderfully designed, single-transmitter command tanks), a half dozen spot reports were coming in from my troops (all critical), my intel NCO had a critical update, my X!
O had a critical update, my ops NCO had a critical update, my 1SG had a critical update, my gunner had spotted dismounts, the regimental commander was forward with us adding his own personal guidance, visibility was almost zero, there was a suspected use of chemical weapons, regimental S-2 reported 500 heavily armed Republican Guards on our objective (later determined to be a squad of American engineers), and I had a moderate to severe case of dysentery. (... A run-on sentence, I know, but then again it was a run-on night.)</p>
<p>It was during this little slice of heaven (of all places) that the 4thClass System was illuminated to me in all its glory. Its goal was not harassment, ridicule, or punishment. Its goal was to train the neural network to deal with an overwhelming amount of disjointed information, quickly process that information, categorize it, and make rapid, sound decisions. At that moment, I would have gladly given a month's pay to the genius who devised the 4th Class System. It provided me with a priceless gift to sort the significant from the insignificant and do my job in a much better fashion. From my perspective, THAT is the rationale behind the system. It trains your brain in a non-lethal environment to sort through the mess, bring some order to it, and continue functioning.</p>
<p>It is an extremely nasty world out there, and part of the academy's mission is to train graduates to survive and excel in that world. We are not doing the graduates any favors by sugarcoating things and putting a happy face on everything. There is still plenty of unadulterated evil, brute force, and chaos to go around. Pretending it isn't there will not make it go away. I sincerely hope that there are enough qualified people to deal with the future chaos and brute force quickly and effectively enough to protect our interests and keep it off our shores. Don't dismiss the 4th Class System as an archaic anachronism. I have found it to be one of the most valuable training programs I have ever undergone.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents ...
Bo Friesen
Major U. S. Army
USMA 83</p>