Dep Dant is trying to fry all the Black N members who wore their sweaters to Halloween

Sad to see so all these Naval Academy traditions that I've heard about be shot down by current leadership...I'll never be able to see them first hand.
#brigadejodeler
 
Sweaters to Halloween? Not sure what happened here. Please explain. DD Plebe is biracial. I honestly don’t know what happened here but I am definitely interested. Thx. I do know that the Dant is not well liked by the midshipmen. Just curious.
 
Wickets said:
Sweaters to Halloween? Not sure what happened here. Please explain. DD Plebe is biracial. I honestly don’t know what happened here but I am definitely interested. Thx. I do know that the Dant is not well liked by the midshipmen. Just curious.
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Every year at Halloween we have a good time. There’s some tasty food in King Hall for once and a pretty fun costume experience. It’s also the one time when members of the Black N come out in force and we get to see if we know anyone, the rest of the year it’s supposed to be hush hush. There is a midregs thing that says we can’t wear black sweaters with a Gold N which targets the sweater but this is like the unofficial one night exception going back for many years. It’s literal tradition and this decision by the current command staff is one in a long list that is just morale killing.
 
Members of the black N? Still not sure what this means. As an old white guy, if black N is african american Navy I support you. If black N is some dark devil reference you shouldn’t be a midshipman. Still clueless.
 
Wickets said:
Members of the black N? Still not sure what this means. As an old white guy, if black N is african american Navy I support you. If black N is some dark devil reference you shouldn’t be a midshipman. Still clueless.
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Let me make this emphatically clear:

The black N has absolutely nothing at all to do with race.

The OP hasn't really provided a lot of context. The Black N "society" is just midshipmen that have gotten over 100 demerits from a single conduct offense. It is so named because if that happens to you you are allowed to purchase a Letterman jacket that is gold with with a black N on it, vice the typical navy blue with a gold N. It's been a tradition for many years

To the OP: that sucks, but I'm not really sure what anybody on this forum will do about it. I thought it was a fun tradition, but personally not a hill I would vote to die on. They had done away with a lot of traditions even before you got to the academy. Ultimately things come and go with different administrations and there's not a lot you can do about it
 
Don't recall wearing a Black N sweater on Halloween as being a tradition in our day. We all dressed up in costumes. The upperclass went "trick-or-treating" to plebe rooms and woe be to the plebes who ran out of candy.

As for the Black Ns . . . we all knew who "earned" them. Someone who received 100+ demerits was walking a lot of tours (or sitting a lot of room tours). And it was a big deal in the company when it happened b/c it usually meant someone had gone over the wall or was hit for fraternization. I don't know that I actually saw an actual Black N sweater. It seemed to be more of a concept than a reality, but I may not be remembering it well.
 
Tradition is one of the things that makes the military special in my opinion. With that said, there's always going to be new leadership coming in, and they always want to put their stamp on things and mix them up to show who's in charge. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. Change is part of life in the military.

Semper Amplecti Sugentes.
 
Yep, this is happening. It has been a tradition in recent years for some of the restrictees to wear the sweater. I understand leadership not wanting to allow it this year, but they could have warned the Brigade in advance, which they didn’t.

The new Commandant has so far been met by a really sour reception, between reducing the number of weekends mids can take, requiring steel toe boots for NWU, making march-ons strict, and a general attitude of condescension when speaking to the Brigade that starkly contrasts with how Captain Chadwick ran things last year. As I’m sure the more seasoned members of this forum can attest, this sort of cultural change happens all the time in the Fleet and is inherent to the job.
 
Things change, for better or worse. I get a kick on the plebe parent FB page. Parents are quick to complain about the Dant and how he has changed things. These peoples' kids are plebes. They don't know any better. They have nothing to compare it to.
 
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A good way to look at it this is it’s quite normal, as @Kierkegaard astutely pointed out. In the Fleet and Corps, a rule of thumb is 30% of leadership and and overall unit population is changing every year. Junior officers will see their CO, XO, department heads change during a 2-3 year tour, same for the enlisted personnel who work for them. The one constant thing is change. The best thing to do is adapt and move on. Learning that skill now is important for adaptation to Fleet and Corps life. There are many ways to lead, and mids learn both what to do and what not to do by observation and by their own roles in company, battalion, regiment or Brigade.

The Superintendent and the Commandant have one mission: to turn out capable junior officers for the Fleet and Corps. Nowhere in their job description is “Chief Morale Officer,” though morale is always important. This kind of friction with new leadership is to be expected.

A wise leader once told me “Your troops will always have something to complain about. Look closely at what they are complaining about and you can then see how critical it is to the mission.”

USNA swings like a pendulum between military school that gives a degree and college that gives a commission. Finding and holding a sweet spot in the middle is one of the tougher aspects of the Supe’s and Dant’s daily work.
 
Kierkegaard said:
...The new Commandant has so far been met by a really sour reception...
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Yeah. I get it. If it were me in that spot, I would go for respect, but I wouldn't care a bit if any Midshipmen liked me. It's not his job to care about your feelings. It's his job to make sure that when you graduate, you will be able to join The Fleet as an effective officer. If you commission as a Marine, then they'll spend another six months getting you trained for that role. Civilians go to "college". You aren't in college. You're in a leadership laboratory, being molded into someone who can and will - visit swift and decisive violence upon our enemies - and lead others to do the same. Don't forget the reason that you are there. Being in the military sucks sometimes, but that's the way it is. More often than not, it doesn't suck. That's why people keep signing up. It will work out, for you and for everyone else, including the 'Dant.

After you are an officer for a while, you'll think the same as me. I can almost guarantee it. :)

@Capt MJ told me recently that a Midshipman's experience at USNA will be like a pendulum, swinging between identities as a military school offering a degree or a college offering a commission. Sometimes it will swing too far one way or the other, and someone would be brought in to correct it. The best Supes and Dants keep it right in the middle. She has some sage first-hand knowledge of the place.
 
usna1985 said:
I don't know that I actually saw an actual Black N sweater. It seemed to be more of a concept than a reality, but I may not be remembering it well.
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I remember the Black N ....usually some good stories behind them. (e.g. one of my favorite Upperclass, prior Fleet/NAPS and from my home area) passed out on the 'Dant's front yard after a Company dining in). Many of the stories are not fully exposed until well after graduation, (And I think I have seen some Black N sweaters at Reunions).

I'm sure the sweaters were worn publicly from time to time, and Halloween was as appropriate a time as any. Halloween in Bancroft Hall was "interesting" back in the '80's. It was a time for the Brigade to let loose, and very little filtering. I don't recall details, but am sure that many of the costumes wouldn't fly in today's society.

With respect to the OP, my only issues is that the Dep Dant is "trying" to fry people for something that happened two weeks ago. I get and agree that the Dep 'Dant's job is to be the disciplinarian (aka bad guy), and there is always friction with a regime change, but the time for taking the action was two weeks ago, or better -- on the spot. Searching out those that wore a Black N sweater two weeks after the fact, if that's what is happening, is like a witchhunt, and will cause big morale problems in the Brigade.
 
Definitely a part of military life. The parade of Black Ns has been around for a few decades actually. I think I saw a picture of all the Black Ns on Facebook this week. Might of even been on one of the official USNA sites. Honestly a lot of things mentioned sound like enforcing good standards. The condescension isn’t a good thing and less weekends is never gonna be a hit with Mids. But most of us OGs on here could only dream of a weekend as Plebes.
 
Must confess that I have zero recollection of ANY Dep Dant during our tenure. I'm not even sure there WAS a Dep Dant. Could have been . . .

In any event, the perspective of a mid regarding leadership during his/her time at USNA often changes once that mid graduates, gets a bit older (and hopefully wiser), and sees a lot of leaders. I recall that the Dant for some of our tenure, then-CAPT Edney, wasn't always the most popular. He was infamous for putting the entire brigade "in hack" for an incident involving the JimmyLegs (civilian security). He ran a tight ship. And I know that we got a lot fewer WEs than mids today -- a LOT fewer.

CAPT EDNEY went on to become 4-star ADM Edney. Most of the mids who were there when he was Dant now realize he was exceptionally good and that we were incredibly lucky to have him (and ADM Larson as Supe). Most of us remember ADM Edney fondly for being tough, but fair, and for making us better. (He is still alive, BTW.)

Some day the OP and other mids will be leaders in the Fleet. You will do things and make decisions that the men and women you lead don't like/don't agree with. It's called leadership, not "friendship" for a reason. This episode will be arrow in your leadership quiver, at least for now.
 
Another thing to consider: perhaps this leadership was selected BECAUSE of their vision....IOW, it could be that this is the exact style ‘the powers that be’ are wanting. For whatever reason.

Change always happens. If we remain stagnant, we don’t grow.
 
Thanks for all the replies, it’s nice to hear the OG’s pass on some good gouge. A lot of anger stems from the fact that they were told they could wear it by the brigade XO who said they had Dant staff approval. Most of them are going to get very low level minor offenses for it but those on LOI for conduct probation may go straight to the Dant for a separation board. They are also keeping any adjudications from it out of the hands of the company officers, I think because most would probably dismiss it.
 
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