I applied to teach history at the Academy in early 1977. In the Spring, nearly a year before I would finish my Master's Degree in the Humanities, I was invited by the History Department to come and interview. Almost as an afterthought, I called the English Department, told them I was coming, and they also wanted to interview me while I was there.
I rented a car and was going to stay with a friend in the mountains. But, from the airport, I kept driving and driving, following his detailed directions; but I never seemed to get to his trailer. Finally, I called from a pay phone in a small mountain town and told him I had better stay at the Visiting Officer's Quarters (VOQ) at Peterson Air Force Base so that I could arrive early enough in the morning to interview all day. I returned to Colorado Springs and got a room at the VOQ; but when I got to the room, I realized that a senior officer had taken up the two adjoining rooms and, without his knowledge, I was told to move his stuff out of my side, close off the doors between the two rooms, and get some sleep. I was concerned that he'd return to his room, be upset that someone taken half his space, and demand that I get out and make other arrangements. Fortunately, that didn't happen; but I still worried about it until I finally dropped off to sleep.
The first full day of interviews with the English Department went quite well. The second day of interviews with the History Department went well, too, except for the final interview with the Department Chairman. I was tired and blurry minded at that point, after two days of constant interviews and different meals and sleeping in a strange place. My final interview did not go well, and I could tell he was not warming up to me at all.
But during the noon break the first day I was there, I hiked down to a level of the academic building where I was told I could watch the cadets marching to lunch. It was indeed impressive, and I wrote the poem, The Academy, after having been inspired by what I saw that day (see the Poetry, Part Two post, in April).
When I returned to Minot, I awaited a call from either department, hoping that I would get a job at the Academy, a dream assignment after Minot. A week later, I got the call from the History Department Chairman that I expected: they chose six other officers instead of me. But the colonel did say that the Deputy Chairman of the English Department wanted me to call him as soon as possible. He was delighted to offer me a job, and I was accepted by the English Department. Such became another link in why I would be forced to resign two years hence. Had I not been in the English Department, I would not have been asked by a captain who had been assigned as my sponsor at the Academy in 1978, to take over an additional duty from him. He was leaving the service and wanted me to assume advising a cadet named Keith Bostic who would need a new Humanities Advisor on the English faculty. What I was surprised to learn was that this cadet, whom I did not know, had asked for me personally to be his new advisor.
It was rather fitting that during my only year at the Academy, I overheard that at least two of those new instructors hired by the History Department had given the Chairman nothing but grief. I suspected that he had probably soon realized that he'd made a mistake in not hiring me when he saw how well I was fitting in with the English Department, one time even greeting me warmly in the hallway between the two departments to ask me how things were going.
But, prior to all of that, I had one year left at Minot before I could move on. I would earn a regular commission; be promoted to captain; rack up 235 alerts; and earn my final Highly Qualified ratings, giving me seven total, and five as a commander. And I had a few more poems to write.
Across the Northern Tier (strategic bases)
Here we do not speak of
Heroes.
No way to recognize.
And all would so swiftly be embarrassed
if anyone should try.
We carry personal recognition.
Acknowledge privately
this war without battles.
(No one wounded that you could see.)
Yet I have witnessed our attrition:
Machines outlast men and women here,
though few of us have died.
You
accept the loss:
Our youth that is our lives.
I rented a car and was going to stay with a friend in the mountains. But, from the airport, I kept driving and driving, following his detailed directions; but I never seemed to get to his trailer. Finally, I called from a pay phone in a small mountain town and told him I had better stay at the Visiting Officer's Quarters (VOQ) at Peterson Air Force Base so that I could arrive early enough in the morning to interview all day. I returned to Colorado Springs and got a room at the VOQ; but when I got to the room, I realized that a senior officer had taken up the two adjoining rooms and, without his knowledge, I was told to move his stuff out of my side, close off the doors between the two rooms, and get some sleep. I was concerned that he'd return to his room, be upset that someone taken half his space, and demand that I get out and make other arrangements. Fortunately, that didn't happen; but I still worried about it until I finally dropped off to sleep.
The first full day of interviews with the English Department went quite well. The second day of interviews with the History Department went well, too, except for the final interview with the Department Chairman. I was tired and blurry minded at that point, after two days of constant interviews and different meals and sleeping in a strange place. My final interview did not go well, and I could tell he was not warming up to me at all.
But during the noon break the first day I was there, I hiked down to a level of the academic building where I was told I could watch the cadets marching to lunch. It was indeed impressive, and I wrote the poem, The Academy, after having been inspired by what I saw that day (see the Poetry, Part Two post, in April).
When I returned to Minot, I awaited a call from either department, hoping that I would get a job at the Academy, a dream assignment after Minot. A week later, I got the call from the History Department Chairman that I expected: they chose six other officers instead of me. But the colonel did say that the Deputy Chairman of the English Department wanted me to call him as soon as possible. He was delighted to offer me a job, and I was accepted by the English Department. Such became another link in why I would be forced to resign two years hence. Had I not been in the English Department, I would not have been asked by a captain who had been assigned as my sponsor at the Academy in 1978, to take over an additional duty from him. He was leaving the service and wanted me to assume advising a cadet named Keith Bostic who would need a new Humanities Advisor on the English faculty. What I was surprised to learn was that this cadet, whom I did not know, had asked for me personally to be his new advisor.
It was rather fitting that during my only year at the Academy, I overheard that at least two of those new instructors hired by the History Department had given the Chairman nothing but grief. I suspected that he had probably soon realized that he'd made a mistake in not hiring me when he saw how well I was fitting in with the English Department, one time even greeting me warmly in the hallway between the two departments to ask me how things were going.
But, prior to all of that, I had one year left at Minot before I could move on. I would earn a regular commission; be promoted to captain; rack up 235 alerts; and earn my final Highly Qualified ratings, giving me seven total, and five as a commander. And I had a few more poems to write.
Across the Northern Tier (strategic bases)
Here we do not speak of
Heroes.
No way to recognize.
And all would so swiftly be embarrassed
if anyone should try.
We carry personal recognition.
Acknowledge privately
this war without battles.
(No one wounded that you could see.)
Yet I have witnessed our attrition:
Machines outlast men and women here,
though few of us have died.
You
accept the loss:
Our youth that is our lives.
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