Annapolis, Maryland - The academic year has yet to begin for most of the class of 2026 but here a select group of young men and women are already grinding through the third week of their “college” experience, complete with obstacle courses, M4 carbines and fully-clothed plunges into the Chesapeake Bay; shaved heads for the males and females left with a little more.

Plebe Summer at the U.S. Naval Academy, the first days on a voyage lasting at least nine years for future Naval and Marine officers serving on the oceans of the world. The stated purpose of Plebe Summer is “a demanding indoctrination period intended to transition the candidates from civilian to military life.” In fact, this describes the core of all military boot camps for officers and enlisted, a invaluable rites of passage for all those who wear the uniform.

In an age of near unlimited choices for young people, every plebe - and enlisted recruit - made this choice; each understands they will be subjected to physical and mental pressure that is unfathomable to their non-military peers. In doing so, these young people will contribute to the defense of our society and equally important, strengthen American civic life.

The path to service

By any measure the plebes are a different breed. Approximately 16,600 applied to the class of 2026, an application process that includes a full medical exam, hearing and eye tests, physical fitness assessment and minimum four in-person interviews on top of high grades and test scores. For enlisted service members, they are among the only 23 percent of their peers qualified to join; the remaining 77 percent have health and educational shortcomings and law enforcement records that deem them unsuitable to serve their nation.

The key component of plebe summer is the constant yelling from the Academy upperclassmen assigned as “detailers”, elsewhere known as the feared Drill Sergeant. As I know from my sons (USNA and USMA, classes of 2018 and 2022), even former high school athletes accustomed to barking coaches find this incessant shouting and correction unnerving; there is never a right answer,  nothing is good enough. If your folded socks face the wrong way in a drawer during an inspection, you fail and the whole unit pays a price.

Some of these kids have rarely or never been yelled at; now it comes in hard and fast. “You fail so much that you learn how to fail and quickly get back up,” said one of my sons.

“Unceasing pressure” and the All-Volunteer force

None of this is surprising to anyone who has served in the military, which since 1973 has been an all-volunteer force. Indeed, the plebe ordeal is nearly identical  to that faced by new Marines at Parris Island, “Coasties” at Cape May, NJ, and airmen at Lackland Air Force Base. The very first day at Fort Benning’s Basic Combat Training, my Army drill sergeant screamed at my platoon, “We’re gonna break you down and build you up so you’re even better!” Three decades later my eldest son heard nearly the exact same words at Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI.

In boot camps everywhere this nonstop all-encompassing system of harsh discipline and ubiquitous authority and the physical and mental tests are designed to force individuals to continually confront and overcome adversity, slowly building loyalty to their comrades, their platoon, their service. USNA Superintendent Admiral Water Carter said it best: “This training, this place, is all about pressure. Constant, unceasing pressure – which leads to failure, then recovery. And resilience.”

Certainly, it’s a hard road but the men and women who walk it have chosen it. For the vast majority, they emerge from the crucible of the service more resolute and disciplined, with a self-awareness that transfers to personal conduct and to the high esteem in which they are held in American civic life.

The end of the beginning

At the end of their first day the plebes struggle with just-learned close-order marching skills and file into the Academy’s Tecumseh Court. Only10 hours into the four long years of Academy life, many look shell-shocked and dejected and some are in tears.

They take the Oath of Office en masse and then march up the granite steps through Bancroft’s huge west-facing wooden doors. The last squad vanishes and then the doors are shut from the inside with a boom; the plebes are now in the total embrace of the Navy. They, like almost all new recruits, won’t see their family members for two months or more.

The indoctrination has begun, the “building up” as my drill sergeant not-so-gently told us. The days and years ahead will require even more grit and fortitude. And the cycle will roll on: Unceasing pressure. Failure. Recovery. Resilience. It’s not for every young person. Nothing hard is.