Attributes of a "whole person candidate"
What is the requirement that makes a candidate a true “whole person” that the service academies are seeking?
I can only imagine that the characteristics, aptitudes, traits, and exemplary attributes of the candidate that the United States service academies are seeking are complex. However, there are certain traits that should be evident to all the personnel who interview these candidates. Here I want to list a sample of ten character traits that my son possesses that make him desire this life, this choice, and this academy above any other choice of a university. These are the character traits that one should have before considering if a service academy is “right” for them.
1) They should possess the character traits that enable them to think of the interests of their nation before the interests that they have for their own lives.
2) They should want to display honor and integrity first and foremost in all that they do and in all that they endeavor to do…
3) They should want their desire to serve their nation to precede their desire to serve themselves.
4) They should understand that the cost of their service could involve the cost of laying down their own lives for the lives of their fellow soldiers.
5) They should know that obedience to their commanding officers comes before obedience to their own objectives and their own goals.
6) They should want to be exemplary examples to all who follow them, and should always want to “lead by example”. Any other form of leadership will prove to be insufficient to make others want to follow them, and to lay down their own lives for their nation.
7) They should understand that the commitment goes beyond the five years that the government wants as a form of repayment for having attended a United States Service Academy… They know that the obligation and duty truly spans a lifetime of commitment to the United States and to the men and women who have served our nation with passion, honor and valor.
8) They should know that this commitment is entirely beyond the ordinary commitment of a young person deciding to attend a specific college. The impact of this decision is far greater and far deeper than the decision to go to this college or that university. This decision involves a commitment about one’s future, one’s hopes, one’s dreams, and one’s desires for a future.
9) They should know that the desire to attend a service academy involves more than a desire for a great education, a beautiful campus, and the ability to have incredible future job opportunities. This desire is about service; it is about a career that will involve a commitment first and foremost to the nation that we all love. It is about a commitment to the nation whose values we all cherish. It is a commitment that goes well beyond the next four years of academic life.
10) They should understand the weight and the honor of having been selected to attend a service academy. It is more than the weight of their grades and their SAT scores that deemed them competent to serve. They were deemed to possess the attributes, characteristics, and ethics that made them desirable as the future men and women leaders of this great nation. They possessed excellence in all that they are, in all that they represented, and in all that they intend to be in the future. The current leaders saw that excellence, recognized that excellence, and acknowledged that excellence. You are the chosen few…!
Primal SCREAM therapy sounds good today. I wonder if they're meeting today because they didn't yesterday. I'm assuming not because I'm not seeing any announcements of BFE or MoC notifications.