A Letter to My Younger Self
Spencer,
West Point is not what you think it is.
The vision you have of what it means to be a cadet, and what it means to be an officer, are incorrect. You are painfully naïve as to what the daily life of a cadet looks like. You will more often be unprepared than you will be prepared, and confidence will quickly become a valuable commodity. At this point in your life, you are probably thinking you “know” a lot, but in reality just about the only thing you are correct about is that Ana, Riley, your parents, and many of your friends as well as your family from back in Nevada will stand behind you and support you through everything USMA throws at you. The expectations for USMA that you have built up in your mind for years will simply not be met. They will be far surpassed.
The best and worst thing about time is that you can’t stop it from passing. Be careful what you wish for.
Even before you arrive at USMA, you will be presented with an unexpected opportunity; a stroke of luck resulting in a spot on Army’s Division I Rifle Team. Compared to your teammates and coaches, you will be a novice, with everything to learn and nothing to lose. Your coach will provide you with the phone numbers of your future ’23 teammates, but you won’t recognize just how influential they (as well as your other teammates) will be in your life until you take the time to think about it your senior year. They will each become as much a part of you by the time you graduate as you currently are, and they will significantly alter the course of your cadet career.
On July 1, 2019, you will report to R-Day. You expect it to suck, but you don’t yet understand that time moves by at a half-step at USMA. Despite this, you will learn that the best kind of suffering is suffering together, and through six weeks of shared hardships unlike anything you had experienced in high school, you will emerge as a proud C4 Cowboy. You will learn that the rest of the corps is jealous of the Cowboy Motto and Cowboy Spirit, so you will remind them at every mandatory meal what they’re missing out on.
As your first academic year begins, so will your first season with the rifle team.
CPT Michael Matthews will spend countless hours mentoring you both on and off the range as he undergoes medical separation from the Army after his cancer returns, and he will also be there 47 months later to commission you after graduation. He will teach you about perseverance and the criticality of servant leadership in the military. He will leave at the end of your plebe year, but like most people you will inevitably part ways with in the military, he will never be more than a phone call away.
You will not find the other coach, Leighton Dempster, as impressive. You will find her immature, inconsiderate, and inapt. You will judge her far too quickly, and like many other assumptions you have made at this time, they will be proven false beyond a reasonable doubt. She will ultimately become the head coach by your Firstie year, and you will see what it truly means to pour 100% of your mind, body, and soul into something bigger than yourself. She will be an inspiration in humility, compassion, and dedication. A now irreplaceable component of the team, Coach Dempster will talk you out of making a fatal mistake and quitting the team at the end of your cow year.
Of the five members of ’23, only two of you will remain Firstie year. The other three will still be lifelong friends, but Ashley Clegg will be an important influence in your life. As the only Firsties on the team, with a new head coach, you will learn how important it is to lay the foundations of a healthy culture as a necessary first step to achieving greatness. As Ashley accepts the responsibility of team captain, you will find that you can contribute to the team in other ways and eventually find yourself sitting in your room one night feeling sad as you think about graduating shortly. The bonds you have developed with your teammates, including those who have already graduated and those who will be graduating in the following years, are as strong as the long gray line is long. They may not realize it, but they will be your support through COVID, scrambling, and some of the darkest days of your life. You will hardly be able stomach the idea of leaving them, but you will have to bank on the mantra that “the Army is a small place” and trust that graduation is not goodbye forever.
As graduation gets closer, you will recognize that none of the coursework you completed, shots you took, or formations you had matter at all. The greatest leadership lessons will be learned from those around you, and you will love and cherish them for the rest of your life.
The most challenging part, however, will be spending the majority of your time 3000 miles away from the love of your life. It will often feel like a part of you is missing, and you will count down the days until the next time you get to see her. Throughout the challenges of a long-distance relationship, you will uncover some of your worst qualities. Although you are undeserving, however, Ana will have grace with you and this will cause your relationship to grow stronger rather than shatter. Even though you will marry her exactly one month after graduation, you will always wonder why she puts up with you and hope it isn’t all a dream. She will teach you that there is far more to life than school and work, but you will need to reminder her of that as well from time to time.
As you have probably noticed, I don’t care much to tell you what it was like to be a cadet or an athlete at USMA. As graduation gets closer, you will recognize that none of the coursework you completed, shots you took, or formations you had matter at all. The greatest leadership lessons will be learned from those around you, and you will love and cherish them for the rest of your life. To be blunt, you will be nothing without these relationships. Everything else pales in comparison. If there’s one thing I hope you’d do differently, it’s spend less time caring about school. West Point will feel like it drags on forever. The end will be nowhere in sight for what feels like a lifetime, until suddenly it’s standing right in front of you, and you will feel a sense of loss as you prepare to move on to what’s next. Although you’ll be very excited for what’s next, you’ll recognize that as you had been hoping all along, time has in fact passed and despite your best efforts it will only continue to do so. You will feel the pressure to have every experience you always put off for later, but the reality is, you have waited too long and those memories will never be had. In fact, by the time graduation comes around, you will find that you are not as ready to leave as you thought, and when you do, you might actually look back.
- Spencer Gillis, West Point Class of 2023