@MarinierMom54 & shutterbugC:
1) None of what I said was directed at anyone in particular so I apologize I should have finished my post with: "..., but I guess to each his or her own."
As I seem to have started some discussion on the matter perhaps a little more background as to why my opinion/recommendation that: "These honors are generally, IMO, something to be celebrated in a low key manner ..."
First, my experience with my own DS is at this point of his life while he still enjoys making us, his parents and family, proud; he is now his own person/man and whatever he accomplishes are his accomplishments. So he appreciates us acknowledging his accomplishments as part of his adult life; but if/when we "crow" about them, he doesn't really like it much at all and feels we are still looking at him as somewhat of the son we had when he was in high school. He probably has a point and at times we can't help ourselves but in the long run I find my relationship with him is better - from both our perspectives - when he feels confident that we regard him as an independent, young adult. Especially when there is cause for him to ask us for our advice and/or help. That's, in our case currently the # reason for my recommendation.
Second, my observations from watching the situations of some other families where their sons and daughters have encountered challenges that found them facing possible dis-enrollment from the USMMA, have been it was always, for various reasons, an easier situation for them to get through if they had been lower key and more humble in their celebrations of the intermediate accomplishments and successes between reporting for INDOC and Graduation day. Most often I have perceived and felt there was less additional pressure put on the Midshipmen and they were more likely to seek the full advice, counsel, and support of their families as they felt less pressure and inclination to hide the situation from their family for fear of having disappointed them. Like I say, this is not something we've gone through firsthand but it is something I've seen friends both while I was a midshipman and now as a parent have to work through and how I perceived some of what they had to deal with.
Third, to some degree I am always a "There but for the Grace of God go I" sort of person. As has been pointed out, getting through the full program. all be it in the "normal" four year program or via some longer more circuitous path, is generally not an easy thing for any who do it. So while this trimester you may have earned a Gold Star, you never know what might happen next trimester ... or you might find the lack of a schedule and oversight during sea year something that is so seductive to you, you return from sea with some required submission not even started, etc in either of these cases, then you or in our cases our children would be the ones seeking advice and counsel as to how to stay. Again this is usually something easier done, if you don't find yourself feeling that you also are choking back on some prior prideful feelings, etc.
So I'll close my thoughts on this with a couple of things
- I never said that these intermediate accomplishments (great trimester grades, etc.) aren't something to be celebrated; I certainly am saying in our family's case we believe they are best celebrated in a relatively low key fashion. Whether we do that with as was noted "humility" or not is actually something that the outside world can judge, but I do know that if my DS finds himself in need of help, advice and counsel on these subjects I'm pretty confident that despite him doing much better through this point of his time at the USMMA then what I did 30 years ago, fear of having disappointed me, will not be something that runs through his mind before he calls us to discuss his situation and available alternatives.
- I agree the USMMA is a Maritime Academy and NOT a Military Academy. That said at the end of the road your child will have FOUR things: a) A B.S. Degree, b) A USCG Merchant Mariners License, c) a Commission, most likely as an Ensign in the USNR, and d) an obligation to repay his country for his education through his service commitment as a member of our Armed Forces for a period of not less than 5 years depending on the path he chooses to follow to make that repayment. My point is there is an aspect of Regimental Life that is related to Esprit d'Corps, etc. that I think is very well captured and reflected by XBulldog's post #24 of this thread. I find his bottom line makes some very relevant points as well:
I've never seen a midshipman posting his grades in celebration of passing a trimester. On the other hand at graduation the flood gates seem to open. Might be like "whistling through a graveyard". Also, there are very few individual athletic achievements posted on this site. If they are, it isn't by the student athletes parents.
I think "the flood gate" at graduation is almost always best seen in the fact the person who gets the biggest cheers - from both his/her peers as well as the entire audience - is the Class Anchorman when he/she goes up on stage and gets his bag of pennies from his classmates. I won't speak for the other 252 members of my graduating class but I know, even though I was nearer to the top of our class than the bottom, the three thoughts running through my own mind watching our anchorman standing there holding a Long Island Bank canvas bag of 25,400 freshly minted 1982 pennies were:
A) "There but for the Grace of God..."
B) "God, how much harder would this have been to go through with the fear of being subject to dis-enrollment if I made any more mistakes relative to grades over the past three years..."
and
C) "The reason he looks as happy as I feel right now is all 254 of us have the same set of bona fides today ... FWE..."
By the way, relative to the thought someone expressed earlier here that "Its only a victory if your team mates are still standing next to you in the end." I agree that sentiment is just not true, as the same person pointed out "This is not high school." There are winners and their are losers, and nobody who only gets an "A" for effort will be making it through. Our class had an unusually high matriculation rate ~318 reported in July of 1978 and 254 graduated in June of 198 including 6 "setbacks" from the entering Class of 1981. That's a 77.98% matriculation rate and was statistically more than the ~66.77% we were led to believe would happen when the RTO told us to look to our left and our right while we were all at our first full assembly on Tomb Field on day one of INDOC and then told us that if we were there at Graduation, the odds were that at least one of the other two people we had just looked at wouldn't be there. So while I agree every midshipmen knows the need for and value of teamwork, they also know there's pretty much no way 100% of their current "teammates" are likely to be alongside them on Graduation Day. I don't think that fact should not prevent they and their families from taking pride and celebrating such things - in a low key manner.
That's all I was trying to say on this subject - and my comments were not focused/directed to anyone in particular.
and to please remember to respect your fellow members. If you need to start a sentence with "You" or a username or some other direct reference to someone it usually isn't in a good way so find ways to work around that to make it more obtuse.
YES! Pleeeeze move on.