ANNAPOLIS– A mere five days after graduation, when most seniors were still celebrating and attending graduation parties, Karen Jackson was shipping out. When she arrived at the academy with her parents and her grandmother, she had a very busy day planned for her. There was an entire Induction Day schedule of events for families and the plebes (the academy word for freshmen). Karen’s family was able to glimpse her in the sea of white at the Oath of Office ceremony, and watched her march off with 1200 other plebes.
Following induction, Karen’s mother explained, “There are seven weeks of orientation called ‘Plebe Summer.’ Other folks call it ‘Boot Camp on Steroids.’ Plebes are issued everything they need. They are not allowed to have any civilian clothing or any electronic devices except for a simple calculator for a placement test and a government issued alarm clock. Their way to communicate to the outside world for seven weeks is through good old fashioned mail. We were given three dates to stand by the phone and wait for a 15 minute phone call from our plebe. And she will not be home until Christmas break.”
At the end of August, Karen emailed about her experiences…
“Speaking about the first several weeks here, all I have to say is that it was incredibly hot! Of course, it also was the induction time so we were constantly doing something physical outside, but I got in shape and had a lot of awesome experiences. We had many great speakers come and talk to us and my company had the privilege of getting to know a great warrior and person, Major Chontosh because he was our company officer for the summer. We also had a holocaust survivor come and talk to us. She’s the person in the movie that Mr. Snow shows during his classes in 10th grade. That was a surreal speech. She was and is such an amazing person.
“The summer was crazy. We’d workout everyday for an hour and a half, normally starting with about three miles as a warm up run, or regimental runs which were about four to six miles. I didn’t mind the runs though. It was really a sight to see, seeing over 1000 people running at the same time, together, around the academy.
“Honestly, every day I’m here I’ve had a moment of awe for what it’s like to be here; the atmosphere, the people, the history. For so long over the summer we never got to really stop and appreciate what was going on around us, but when we did, it was inspirational. Being a girl here is nothing really special. There’s no difference to having one girl in a class or one guy. We all know we are here to serve and to help the nation and we all know we do our best everyday to hold that standard.
“One of my highlights here was actually today. For morning workout today I ran my fastest mile and a half ever at 10:11!”
We look forward to hearing more about Karen’s experiences in her first year at the US Naval Academy.