Hello, everyone. If you haven’t heard already, life at the Academy can be hard. You take 16-23 credit hours per semester and, on top of that, you have several military obligations as well as mandatory athletics. With all of these challenges, many of us cadets often forget that we have a lot to be thankful for and, as Thanksgiving approaches, I thought it would be an appropriate time for me to reflect on what I am thankful for here.
- The Swim Team: I have been a swimmer since I was six years old, which means I have been swimming for almost a decade and a half. Swimming is a big part of my life and my identity and being able to continue with this throughout my tenure as a cadet has been an enormous help in keeping me motivated. Not only do I have something familiar from my life before the Academy but also the men’s team is a true brotherhood. Every day, no matter how tired I am, I can look forward to practice if for nothing else to see the guys.
- OCF and Jiu Jitsu: Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF) and Jiu Jitsu are the two main clubs, besides the Blog Club, that I participate in. I decided to talk about them together because they both help me equally decompress. My dad was a youth pastor in Des Moines, Iowa when I was born and so Christianity has been a large part of my life. Having the opportunity to fellowship with other believers on a weekly basis at OCF is not only refreshing but has allowed me to meet other likeminded people who I now call friends. Jiu Jitsu is relaxing in another manner entirely but for me no less spiritual. I have done martial arts from when I could walk until the end of middle school and intermittently after. My dad being an avid martial artist helped train me in Taekwondo and Krav Maga before I came to the Academy but, due to the time commitment needed to swim, I was unable to continue for much of high school. When I came to the Academy, I was looking for something to get back into Taekwondo when I came across the Jiu Jitsu club, which I had never heard of before, so I thought I would try it and ever since then I have been a fanatic. As a grappling martial art, it is very different from Taekwondo and Krav in that there is no punching/kicking (i.e., striking); it’s solely grappling. After every practice I go to no matter how tired I was going into it or how physically tired I come out, I always leave energized and ready to go at it again.
- My Company: The Corps of Cadets is split into eight companies: Alpha- to Hotel and as a fourth class you are assigned to a company for a year and then transfer to a new company for your last three. Last year I was in Delta which was an amazing experience. I am extremely glad I was able to spend a year there and I would have loved another three but alas, things must change, and I hit the jackpot. I am now in Golf company, which by most people in the corps would not be regarded as the highest in morale. However, the people who transferred in from my class are awesome, several of my good friends came with me, and it feels like the majority of the swim team is in Golf so I get to be with my team all the time, I couldn’t ask for a better group.
There are so many more things I could write about, but, as this is longer than most papers I have written I’ll keep it at these three. Despite the challenges of this place, there is always something there to pull you through. These three are a few examples of many that have gotten me where I am now.
Spes In Virtute
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