Military Academies Are Miserable Places

In this clip from back to your story podcast I share why military academies are miserable places.

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[SkipFreeman-BuildingAutomation]

Class of 1976. We started with 1325 and graduated 835. Would I want to do it again? No. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely. Thanks for your podcasts, Andrew.

[fredcasanova]

Correction most military installations are miserable

[SenorJuan]

I was so used to my authoritarian father yelling at me that Army boot camp didn't really bother me.

[chaddnewman]

USMA class of 1994. We started with 1390 or so and graduated about 1000. I have a recurring dream that I have to go back and repeat my plebe year every couple of months. It creates a weird sort of love/hate relationship for the Academy.

[McDago]

I knew a guy that got accepted to West Point, and became a Mormon to get off campus. He lasted two years. When he was my roommate he drank and smoked heavily, but looked like he worked out every day.

[julieneuhaus]

So True! Speaking as a parent of a USNA Grad. A Veteran and a Military Spouse.❤ 🙏🏻 God Bless the sponsor families! Everything is done for a reason. 🙏🏻❤️🇺🇸 for All Military Service Members.

[anre]

Navy SEAL Officer @JakeZweig said this about the Naval academy but folks thought he was just bitter

[RealAugustusAutumn]

I went to a military academy. It was not a miserable place, it was great. Hard work sure, but fun and rewarding. I wished for a long time we could go back.

[hoofgripweightlifting]

Norwich Grad Class 97 and former army officer. I was also prior enlisted prior to getting ROTC scholarship.

I hated being a Cadet. But I look back and I am glad I did it.

Hard to explain. But I know Service Academy grads and grads of VMI and Citadel would understand.

[MegaRedspade]

It’s tough and miserable but deep down you miss it while making the best memories you won’t forget. Im glad I went to Norwich and not a civilian school.

[jackm]

I went to VMI and we lost a quarter of our class by the time we graduated

[azimuthbusinesscenter]

Civilians say the word "structure" as if they think it is good to scrub toilets with a toothbrush in your underwear

[MbisonBalrog]

Are they more miserable than a base, ship at sea, or colleges?

[illtemperedcur]

This sort of thing goes back a LONG way. And while it can produce great soldiers and leaders, if it's not done properly it can really cause some long term problems in the officer corps.

The example I always come back to is the Imperial Japanese military schools up until 1945. They were notorious for borderline starving their students from elementary school age all the way up until they received their commissions. Produced incredibly tough officers, but they also were smaller, weaker and less muscular than their troops, because of malnutrition all through their military schooling. In a rigidly stratified society like Imperial Japan, that would work because the culture mandates strict obedience, but in a more egalitarian society like in the West, it would be quite different.

[darthhodges]

R. Lee Ermey did an interview not long after Full Metal Jacket came out. He described his view that boot camp was intended to be the most difficult thing (physically and emotionally) that a recruit has ever done. That way when they go to war and it's worse, it's only a little bit worse than boot. It sounds like the Military Academies are trying to (among other things) do the same thing to their freshmen.

[shawnfox]

Norwich '81. Prior enlisted ... Hazing was still in effect. I called my Dad two weeks into Sept (@) and said I gotta get out of here. He told me to hang on for the semester and tough it out. I did. And graduated on time. Would never do it again! HAH!! Airborne, Ranger, RIP ... sucker for pain I guess!

[AnthonySforza]

I recall in the Navy, the Academy guys were usually pretty chill. I mean, you hear about "Knockers" and guys like that, but I was admittedly never privy to seeing them. I will say, though, that when encountering someone with the negative characteristics attributed to Academy guys, it was always an OCS Officer.

Who walked around with a chip on their shoulder like theyre trying too hard to convince everyone theyre a Military Officer, instead of just being one. Like when doing preflight checks, if a plane was marked "Down" and for an insane reason, like a lighted button needing to be 200 lumens but was only 195, it was always an OCS Officer. Whereas all the Academy giys would come out to do their preflight checks like "Whoa, is that half the wing hanging of the jet... screw it, let's fly!"

[jumpingjeffflash]

"A nice place to be from not nice to be at" is how I've heard them described.

[chuckbecker]

USMMA (would have been) Class of 72. It was all this but the academics were insane because we spent our entire Third Class year at sea on commercial merchant ships. So we had to cram 4 years of academics into 3 years on campus. Sea year was absolutely wild, released from the pressure cooker of Plebe Year into the "anything and everything goes" world of the commercial merchant marine with absolutely no supervision. That was the end of me 🙂 But after an enlisted tour in the USNavy it all turned out okay. Having worked my way up, in 1983 I was promoted to Master. So even without the zigs and zags, 11 years to Master is kind of okay.

[Bronx_Yankee]

USNA ‘78…..I didn’t last 30 days…..it was a more miserable place than the South Bronx….when I went back home….it was like NYC began destroying itself, Nixon resigned as President…..