Eleven Years to the Minute

Yesterday, I attended the US Naval Academy commissioning for the class of 2026. It’s a four-hour event full of traditions, tears, and joy. The Blue Angels bring their iconic demonstration of raw power thundering across the stadium, I swear no more than 100 feet above the lights. The powerful and the influential travel up from Washington to give sanguine speeches about the storied deeds of old and the future deeds of these brave young men and women, soon to be officers.

Families are celebrated, and told to be proud. Demerits are lampooned, and told to be forgotten. Memories from four years together by the Bay are shared and exaggerated and memorialized.

And then the ceremony ends with “three cheers for those we leave behind!” Hip Hip, Hooray! Hip Hip, Hooray! Hip Hip…

In that moment, I was transported. Emotionally, mentally, physically. Butterflies, a tightness in my chest, tears in my eyes, and pure joy in my heart. Suddenly, it was still May 22, but I was once again a young twenty-two-year-old Midshipman, coffee stains down the front of my choker whites, walking uncertainly towards the rest of my life.

Suddenly, it was still May 22, but I was once again a young twenty-two-year-old Midshipman, coffee stains down the front of my choker whites, walking uncertainly towards the rest of my life.

I was nervous. I was unsettled. I had no idea what the world would hold for me or where I was headed. I knew that I had achieved my life-long ambition, my dream of following in my grandfather’s footsteps (more or less). Of wearing the cloth of our nation. And that I had succeeded at the Academy beyond my imagination. That I was graduating near the top of my class, a qualified engineer, a varsity athlete, a future cryptologist with an appointment to MIT for graduate education.

But I was also acutely aware that life was about to change, and maybe not for the better. That I had spent four years living shoulder to shoulder with my best friends, my brothers, the people who had become my family and my support and everything that I relied upon to be successful. That we were about to be shipped off to the four corners of the earth. That it was unlikely we would ever find each other all together again.

Looking into my future in that moment, I was a bit scared. And lonely.

I was sad. I had found my home at the Naval Academy.

I was the dog who had caught the car. This was everything I had dreamed of since I was eight years old. I only applied to one college (even though I had lied to my mom, claiming I applied to Rutgers in a misguided attempt to get her off my back). I only ever had one dream. And here I was, about to step off the flight deck into the vast blue sea and the greatest unknown a young man could hope for.

I was the dog who had caught the car.

I sat down and gave thanks to my grandfather who had died a year prior. Enlisted in the Army in 1939, shipped off to Australia and the South Pacific, a battlefield commission. An award for valor, a promotion to 1st Lieutenant, a purple heart, convalescence, and a golden ticket home. He was the greatest influence on my life. I looked up and thanked him and asked him to be proud. I saw a massive sky, and then a scoreboard, and then my own silly serious face, tears falling down my cheek, sitting next to my friend Karl.

Karl and I shared a major, and most of the same courses. We’d known each other well. We’d studied together and programmed robots together. And suddenly everyone and all of our parents and friends and families were looking at us on the big screen.

And thus came into being one of my favorite pictures from that day in 2015. We started playing rock-paper-scissors.

By the time the Blue Angels arrived, the excitement and confidence were building. There’s nothing quite like six Hornets ripping across the sky.

After speeches from the Vice President (Joe Biden), the Secretary of the Navy (Ray Mabus), the Superintendent (Vice Admiral Ted Carter), and the Commandant of Midshipmen (then-Captain Bill “The King” Byrne), and oaths of office from the Commandant of the Marine Corps (General Joseph Dunford) and the Chief of Naval Operations (Admiral Jonathan Greenert).

After someone said to write your mothers and wear your sunscreen.

After someone proposed a post-ceremony drink at “McGreevy’s” (it’s actually “McGarvey’s”).

And then the weight lifted.

The seriousness, the fear, the doubt, the sadness, all of it gone. My chest filled with breath again. My shoulders dropped. Chin high, eyes hopeful, heart open and proud.

All that remained was joy and pride in a job done right.

And hope for more to come.

I wanted to share these pictures from my own commissioning because they show an obvious journey. You can see the uncertainty on my face in the first few pictures. The doubt and touch of sadness. And you can see how that changed throughout the day. I had forgotten about these feelings until yesterday, when I was transported through time and space and felt it all over again.

Eleven years to the minute that I received my commission as an Ensign in the Navy. I swear it was just yesterday.