I wanted to wish the Class of 2026 candidates the best of luck for plebe summer and post some advice - with an emphasis on plebe summer - but which is also applicable throughout the four years at the Naval Academy and as future leaders of the Navy and Marine Corps:
1. Never give up and always try your hardest! Adversity will be a constant in your career and begins with plebe summer. The ability to be overcome adversity, be resilient, and to keep commitment is key. Plebe summer is meant to be challenging – however, the challenges you will face later will be much more demanding compared to the menial challenges of plebe summer, plebe year, and the Naval Academy. If you think you have it “bad” – there are many others who have it worse than you do. One day you will be expected to lead Sailors and Marines through adversity and challenges – plebe summer begins your preparation. A favorite cliché is to “embrace the suck” – don’t fight it!
2. Be a teammate - make others look good! At this point, your individual credentials that got you to the Naval Academy, frankly, doesn’t matter. What matters now is how you fit and interact with a team. Instead of just worrying about whether your rack, uniform, room, etc. looks good or is squared away – help your squad/platoon/companymates. This will be emphasized at various points, lectures, and readings throughout the summer. However, it is completely up to you to implement. Sometimes it is more important to help or make your buddies look better than yourself. Each individual brings many strengths and weaknesses – work as a team to fix each other’s weaknesses (and be open to what your own weaknesses are) to increase team (squad/platoon/company) performance.
3. Be introspective! Every plebe is going to make a mistake, have shortcomings, or in some way “mess up.” Connected with overcoming adversity – evaluate what went wrong and what needs to be done to correct the deficiency. Your character and performance will be evaluated on how you bounce back from shortfalls. Through your time at the Naval Academy and as an officer, your chain of command will be counting on how you will fix issues, not always focusing in on the outcome of the original problem. The Navy is looking for leaders who can rapidly learn from their mistakes, course correct, and re-evaluate. Plebe summer is the start of this mindset and there are many ways you will be evaluated on this.
4. Release stress - laugh at yourself, connect with your new friends! While there aren’t many times to “relax” during plebe summer, it is important that you learn how to manage/release stress – for some it is PT (PEP and sports period), others it is complaining (natural for most), and for some it is talking about non-work related interests. Find what your avenues are – military work is inherently stressful and this will be a somewhat constant throughout your career. Teams typically succeed because they are more connected beyond work – I would encourage you to find out the “person” who is your room/squad/platoon/companymate. You will need some thick skin for constructive criticism and mess ups – everyone is going to make mistakes – you are human after all – but being able to laugh at your own mess ups is another way you can connect with each other. As you probably have seen other alumni comment, numerous times, on the forum, these mess ups are still recalled and laughed about many years after.
5. Never ever lie – bite the bullet, no matter how bad the consequence! The quickest way to get kicked out of the Naval Academy and lose respect of midshipman and classmates is to lie or not be fully truthful. Suffice to say, lying can cause damage to equipment and can seriously hurt or kill your teammates. While it won’t be that dramatic during plebe summer or at the Naval Academy, if you can’t accept consequences over your own integrity, then you definitely can’t lead other servicemembers. Trust is the root of any team, if you can’t be trusted, you will immediately lose the confidence of your team. Undoubtedly, there will be times during plebe summer where it could be easier to cut a corner (lie/cheat), but it isn’t the right thing to do, whether it would or wouldn’t be discovered. I would always refer you back to the consequences that it could have down the road – if you lie now, there is a better chance that you might do it again, when it really matters.