Finally done.

Yesterday marked the last day of swab summer for the incoming class of 2014, and they are now members of the respected corps of cadets, although they are not officially cadets until monday when they get their shoulder boards. I could probably fill 50 pages full with stories from being a cadre in their "boot camp" experience, but I won't at this time. Perhaps I'll put up stories from time to time. What I will say now, however, is that I learned much more going through it as a cadre than I did as a swab. Sure, going through it initially and being indoctrinated into the military is important, key, in fact, to surviving the military. But being on the other side was something completely different. It is up to us to mold these people into a motivated, high performing, teamwork-oriented, flawless group.

My classmates took this group of 35 kids fresh out of high school who didn't know each other at all and turned them into basically trained coast guard men and women in just over 6 weeks (with a week on a ship away from us). Finding the perfect balance of punishment and motivation each day is harder than I had ever imagined. If they messed up they had to be held accountable. And at the beginning of the summer we didn't worry about motivating them at all. That was the breaking down phase. But these last two weeks required us to mold them into a motivated, dedicated team. And if all we did was beat them to the ground they would never perform. In fact, I found that the tone we set when we woke them up had the largest effect on how they would perform for the rest of the day. One of my classmates, a great guy, has a tendency to be a hard ass in the morning, always yelling at them early in the morning when we do the morning cals, etc. So I tried to be the one to wake them up. I'd blast some rock at 0530, and as soon as they got up and counted off I'd say "4 minutes, head and water break, go". Nobody wants to do a lot of talking early in the morning, and even less people want to hear a lot of talking that early. As soon as they'd get back it would always be something like "Who's psyched for cals?! hoorah sir! It's going to be on the parade field, I want you all to fly out there like a bunch of badasses and freakin shake the earth with your pushups!! OOORAH!!! FOXTROT HUUUUUH!!" The pace we set in the morning normally set the tone for the rest of the day.

I learned lessons such as these almost every day about all sorts of things. Yesterday was sea trials. When I went through swab summer it was the worst day of my life. Not even kidding. To this day it was the worst day I've ever had. Going through it as a cadre it was still extremely hard, almost as hard as going through as a swab. We definitely make it a memorable culminating event for the swabs, they'll never forget yesterday. Ever. We ran from 0330 in the morning until around 1830, waking them up to the sound of an air raid siren (and me being in a rain suit with gas mask already in one of their rooms and yelling at them to push deck because their ship was sinking - yeah, it didn't make sense but they were so scared it didn't matter). It was so intense that morning that some compared it to reporting-in day, which as I'm sure you've all seen on TV or something, is super intense. We were yelling at them for everything, and if any one of them messed up on anything we made them push deck or do squats or something physical. We literally were killing them physically ALL DAY. Obviously there were times when they weren't doing physical things, but the majority of the day was spent doing something physical. Thankfully, we were able to instill a sense of pride and accomplishment by the end of the day that overruled the pain from the day and in some convoluted way, made everything we did that day worth it.

At one particular point, we had just finished making them run to an island, row huge inflatable rafts back to the Academy, carry them around the track, and form back up into a company. However, we heard one of the swabs tell another swab to "Shut the fuck up" while they were coming up with a plan on how to get everyone in the rafts and rowing. So for the next hour while we were taking them in twos to test them on sailing, we beat everything out of the swabs. It was literally and hour of intensive training in the dirt. If it hadn't have been for the fact that they had lunch right after that then I am positive they would have passed out on their run to the next event. Thankfully they got the message. You just don't talk to your classmates or teammates that way.

Like I said, I have so many stories and lessons that I could spend forever writing them. Perhaps I will, but for now that is all.

P.S. I've spent most of the day sleeping today!

-Storm