People at the Academy

sellina_753

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Jul 12, 2018
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Are the people at USAFA nice? I’ve been looking into applying but I’m a bit worried about upperclassmen picking on Doolies.
 
If you’re serious about applying, and if you’re not yet a senior, then explore a couple options to see for yourself. One is USAFA’s Summer Seminar. The other is Candidate Visit Weekends. Neither is a perfect microcosm — SS is, well, during the summer, and CVW is, well, just a weekend — but you’ll get to interact with cadets, ask them questions, get to know them a bit. Much better than getting two-dimensional input from this forum.
 
The Doolie experience is part of a process and is there for a reason. If you attend you will go through that process. As kinnem said, it depends on your definition.
 
I hear there are safe zones set up all around campus.
All you have to do is run to one of them and yell "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!" and no one in the cadre can yell at you.

It may be a rumor.
 
Future warriors may find it handy to meet less-nice people at times and learn how to handle, deflect, manage, defend against, take the offensive against, ignore those people or deal with them in future as the rules of engagement, the strategic objective and combat orders direct.
 
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It may surprise you, but we are people too. There are nice cadets and mean cadets, nerds and jocks, trained counselors and power-trippers, those who care a lot and those who don't care at all. That being said, you are intended to be in a "training environment" the entirety of your 4-degree year. That means you have a lot of rules and not a lot of luxuries. You cannot be friends with upperclassmen and their interactions with you are intended to teach you how to be a cadet and an officer. While this may be frustrating and tiresome at times, the Academy, just like any other school, does not allow bullying or hazing. This separation also means you become extremely close with the other members of your class year. You forge strong bonds with the people who go through hardships with you.
 
Hoodlum15, well said.
OP also needs to remember that the upper class cadets "have been there and done that" as well.
 
Such an interesting question by OP, especially the use of the word “nice.” Having known academy/ROTC grads over the years, and having met current and incoming mids/cadets, I can think of many words that describe them well: friendly, engaging, polite, respectful, outgoing (not to mention smart, driven, fit, and so forth). But nice isn’t a word that immediately comes to mind.

Prospective mids/cadets should realize tbat they’ll need thick skin to survive and thrive, im both ROTC/academy and the military. Just in plebe summer, you’ll be yelled at constantly, there won’t be much “please” and “thank you,” and the detainees are telling, not asking. And things remain rather impersonal and direct through the rest of plebe year. Does that make upperclassmen not nice? Maybe. Is that just how it works? Absolutely. As the Godfather said, “it’s not personal, it’s busines.” But be sure you’ll be able to handle it.
 
Prospective mids/cadets should realize tbat they’ll need thick skin to survive and thrive

+1 MidCake

To the OP: Watch this video in its entirety, especially at 47 seconds in. This is just day one of BCT.

If you are looking for a "please" and "thank you" environment, you may need to re-think your military career path.

 
While I know that the demeanor of cadets need to adapt according to specific training requirements, I've been impressed by each and every cadet that we've had the honor of hosting in our home.

Yes, some of the doolies will feel picked on and some of the upper-classmen may go a bit overboard, but it has a defined purpose for both the doolies and their trainers.
 
Sellina. Why are you interested in applying to the academy? If the core reason isn’t to serve your country, protect and defend the constitution of the United States, defend the citizens of this great country, and be willing to give your life as a military officer in doing the above things; then the academy and military is not the right place for you.

There will be lots of yelling, screaming, and other ways to get your attention to get you to conform as a military “Team Member”. The yelling and screaming is needed sometimes to emphasize how important becoming a leader and part of the team is. A leader and team member at Target or Walmart can make mistakes and an item doesn’t get stocked on the shelf for sale; or enough enough registers get opened and there are long lines. When military leader or team member makes a mistake, other members of that team can possibly DIE.

If you can’t understand and accept these differences and the reasoning and motives behind this described method of training, then the academy and military are not for you. If you can understand and accept this, then the yelling and screaming won’t bother you. Because you’ll understand the reasoning behind it and you’ll know that the reason is to keep your team members alive and to succeed at whatever military mission you are presented with.
 
One final thought from me, for Sellina and other candidates who might be struggling with “nice”: As an appointed cadet/mid, you’ll take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. That carries with it the possibility that you may someday be asked to kill. There’s absolutely nothing in this world less nice than that. Please give that deep consideration before applying to become a cadet/mid.
 
@sellina_753

Sellina, see this link below.

Becky Dowling Calder was one of the nicest USNA midshipmen I knew, and a perfectly nice naval officer, yet she was able to use her Hornet’s weapons to lethal effect as part of her combat mission.
https://parade.com/590623/parade/becky-calder-blazes-a-trail-for-female-fighter-pilots/

BTW, I’m not assuming you are either female or male, I just like the comment in the story about how she found herself in a real-life situation.

Do your research on what Air Force officers do for the five or more years after they commission. If you can see yourself serving in one or more of those roles, then work backwards to the path that best fits you. Do your research on USAFA and AFROTC, the lifestyle and culture. Take advantage of the summer sessions and visit programs. Read every page, dropdown and link on USAFA and AFROTC sites to understand the requirements.

At the SAs, there are all kinds of ECAs and groups to find a social home with that would suit you.

“Niceness” is not necessarily the hallmark of any one group of people. In the military, being professional and courteous (if time and the operational situation permit) around all kinds and flavors of personalities and human interactions, in all kinds of stressful situations, is a key to success. You will encounter not-nice people, however you define that, in every college, profession, workplace and family.

In the military, you will be yelled at in every accession program, whether boot camp, Service Academy, ROTC, OCS/OTC, not because people aren’t nice, but because they care enough to train you to handle high-stress situations when you are tired, hungry, scared, or with alarms going off in the cockpit, voices yelling orders in your earpiece, and all hell breaking loose around you, in potentially life or death situations where YOUR cool-headedness under pressure will be the reason your airmen, soldiers, sailors, Marines or Coast Guardsmen live or die. You are either tough enough to withstand that, or not.
 
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Following Capt MJ’s post, is this the part where someone drops the mike? Don’t think there’s much to be said after that.
 
You’re too kind. At OCS, I never really got, with a true gut understanding, why people were yelling at me, but that understanding deepened with time. I directly attribute Navy training and experience to carrying me through difficult times.
 
Stealing and posting a great post from raimius (another USAFA grad like myself) from 2011 . . .

Actual hazing is very rare, and usually punished appropriately. What most people see as "hazing" is either very tough training or training where they don't understand the purpose.

Sometimes training programs' purposes are not explained well or connected well with the actual methods. These are usually where most complaints come from.


This explains part of things well, IMO.

Here's a story from the Army side. This is a commonality to all the military branches.

(Now LTC Friesen)
Author, Major Bo Friesen USMA 83 (15 Jun 99)

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

Just my 2 cents ...
Bo Friesen
Major U. S. Army
USMA 83
 
Harassment with a purpose...50,000+ as of this year’s class that have made it...cage your eyes and don’t take it personal... best advice my Cadet now recent grad 2nd Lt was told...
 
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