Military School Experience

Wes Moore (WM) was a very unhappy teenager (age 13), as a new cadet in a military boarding school, but he matured to be a positive cadet leader, later transitioning from military service to civilian careers, eventually elected (11/22) Governor of Maryland.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

WM’s father was a news anchor at a radio station, where he first met WM’s mother, who worked as a news production assistant. When WM was 3 years old, his father died unexpectedly of a rare illness. His mother did not feel safe in their neighborhood as the only adult in the house, so she, her son WM and his sisters moved to live with her parents in a safer area of the same city. 

WM’s grandfather, a retired Dutch Reform minister and his wife, a retired schoolteacher, were of Jamaican descent, part of a tightknit clan that extended back to the island. WM’s grandparents were loving but strict, forbidding him to leave home with chores undone. 

At the time, the city was swept up in the crack epidemic. Addicts clustered on street corners and in abandoned houses, sometimes aggressive. Crime shot up. The high school in WM’s neighborhood became one of the first in the city to employ metal detectors. So, WM’s mother sent him to grade school in an upscale city neighborhood, paying for it by working several jobs and relying on the school to accept delayed payments. 

EDUCATION BEGINS

As a student in the ‘nice’ school away from his home neighborhood, WM struggled for a sense of belonging while he moved back and forth between the mostly minority working-class neighborhood where he lived, played basketball and ‘code-switched’ to street slang and the well-ordered, overwhelmingly White upper-class world of his  (elementary grades) school. 

From the outside, however, WM appeared to belong as much as anyone at school, according to his mother and a classmate. In fact, his mother worried that his classwork was taking a back seat to his learning. She said: “I didn’t feel he was giving himself a chance to realize his potential because he was so social, and everybody wanted to be his best friend.” WM was content to get Cs, lacked motivation and was a prankster, once setting off a smoke bomb in the school. 

Mom worried that school officials would be less likely to tolerate such behavior from him than from his rich, White classmates. Meanwhile, Wes said he often felt his poor performance and antics were too well tolerated, partly because he was Black, fatherless and from a poorer neighborhood, even though both of his parents had been college graduates. “I didn’t have to make excuses for myself because I had people who were making excuses for me…. I think their interpretation of caring for me was lowering their expectations.” he said. 

One day, WM and a neighborhood pal were picked up by a police officer for spraying graffiti on the outside wall of a bar. Unrelated to that incident, the dean of his upscale grade school met with WM’s mother to discuss her son’s poor grades and behavior. With all these negatives piling up, WM’s mother decided to send her son to a military school which a friend had raved about for what the discipline there had done for her son. Said mom: “I was determined that I would not lose him to the streets……..or to mediocrity.” 

SCHOOL OF ‘HARD KNOCKS’ – MILITARY SCHOOL FOR GRADES 7 THROUGH 12

Arriving at his new school at age 12, WM was miserable – he missed home and was hazed by upperclassmen like all the new cadets. Contact with family was forbidden during the two months of harsh training known as the ‘plebe system.’ WM tried to escape from the school 5 times during those early weeks. After that fifth (and what would be his final) attempt, WM’s squad leader made an exception to the ‘no family contact’ rule and permitted him to call home. On the phone, WM begged his mother to let him return home, promising model behavior. 

“This was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made – to send him away, to say you have to stay there” recalled his mom, whose parents had mortgaged their house to help her pay the tuition. “But I was also hoping that it would teach him about choices. You know, you can choose to do well, then you have a choice…. If you want to squander this opportunity, then you won’t have a choice.”

Despite whatever he was feeling inside, around campus WM was exceedingly friendly, ready with a wide, toothy smile. A friend said WM was “impossible not to like.” An older, Black cadet took WM ‘under his wing’ but often felt like the mentoring role was reversed as WM pushed the older cadet to explain how he had become a cadet captain. The older cadet said later: “WM knew even then that you need to think about stuff, that you need to have a plan to get where you’re going.” While the older cadet admitted failing several times to pass the tests to get the ‘Cap Shield” – a badge on the uniform hat that signaled promotion – WM aced the tests on the first try. 

Plebes appeared before what was informally called “The Murder Board,” a panel of senior cadet leaders who barked questions that required lengthy recitations of the school’s history, honor code and much more. By that point, the plebes had already been put under great pressure by the older cadets, who forced them to perform calisthenics at all hours. One of the most memorable exercises was called “The Nauseator” which required the plebes to put their foreheads on their (empty) rifle barrels and spin around then in tight circles before climbing a hill, inevitably all plebes falling back with dizziness.

Aside from teaching the plebes how to handle their weapons and march flawlessly in parade formation, the military officials at the school required them to “square” their meals – eating with utensils and arms perpetually at 90-degree angles, lest an officer knocked on the table, requiring everyone to stop eating and go hungry.

WM gradually accepted and excelled within the academy’s rigid rules and high expectations. He described obtaining the coveted cap shield as a key pivot point in his life. “It was the first time I experienced that, where you had to earn everything. Nothing’s going to be given to you.”

To move up the ranks at the military school, cadets were expected to show consistency in their habits, work ethic, attitude, and behavior toward others. WM excelled at steadiness. He was captain of the basketball team, played football, ran track and wrestled, worked as Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper, served three times as class President and was a regular presence on the Dean’s Academic Honor list. 

A classmate when WM was a sophomore and First Captain, watched as WM – accountable for his cadets as well as his own schoolwork – put a cold washcloth on his face to stay awake during class. “I remember thinking WM was human and he did get tired, but it was so rare to see a moment of weakness.” 

The classmate recalled WM’s unusual maturity when WM intervened as First Captain in a conflict between the classmate and the company he was commanding. The classmate’s underlings, egged on by their ousted former leader, had begun circulating a petition to remove him (the classmate). WM intervened to arrange a peaceful continuation of the status quo by calming talking to all of the factions involved. Said the appreciative classmate later: “He could have just told me to work it out. Lots of leaders want to pass the buck.” 

WM was known on campus as a powerful speaker, tasked as First Captain with addressing the student body during weekday vespers in the cavernous chapel with its stained-glass windows depicting historical military scenes. His American history and social studies teacher toward the end of his high school years, coached WM as he practiced his speech about the U.S. Constitution for an American Legion oratorical contest. When WM delivered the speech during the competition, he won first place in the state. His speech included: “I am proud to be an ‘American’ because I understand now just what my ancestors had to go through for me to be called American. It took initiative, it took courage, and it took knowledge…. Knowledge of the same document that originally ‘we’ were not included in, the Constitution.”

“WM stood out not only as a leader or as someone who can speak, but he also stood out as a mature individual who cared about others,” said his former teacher. 

A classmate recalls WM talking excitedly about Colin Powell, a Black four-star general and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, after WM read Powell’s book “My American Journey.” Like WM, Powell had Jamaican ancestry and spent his childhood years in the same city neighborhood where WM grew up before heading to military school. 

“Powell, in his pragmatic way, wanted what I wanted” WM later wrote. “A fair shot… A code that would instill discipline, restrain passion, and order his steps. A way to change the world without unleashing the whirlwind.” 

CHALLENGE – DEALING WITH THE RACE ISSUE NATIONALLY AND LOCALLY

From the viewpoint of many of his White classmates, WM’s race was not an obstacle. A classmate recalls the military staff gathering cadets to voice their feelings about the 1992 riots in Los Angles after the death of Rodney King (a Black adult who was wrong to be driving drunk and speeding away from pursuing police but after he stopped and was arrested, another person’s video camera filmed several police officers kicking King in the body and head; the video “went viral” leading to large demonstrations against police brutality; eventually the police were convicted of assault and the city had to compensate King for his injuries. 

“There was no Black or White (at our military school at the time). Everybody had the same opportunities,” said a fellow military school graduate. But WM recalls some cadets using racial slurs, including one of his cadet commanders, who singled out other Black cadets as “sand n—-” during training. WM’s perspective: “You know, what was more hurtful about it was…. The ones who would never stand up to object.” 

WM made such an impression on his classmates that they openly spoke about him becoming the first Black U.S. President. But only one of his classmates can recall WM talking about a career in politics while at the military school. He and WM “would have discussions about how we both wanted to be President of the United States. At the time, the school was almost like a laboratory for politics, where teenage leaders held a great deal of power – accountable to the school command for underlings and largely determining the fate of their peers who violated the rules,” said another classmate. 

Cadet officers were tasked with supervising plebes by visiting them in their dorms as periodic, unscheduled check-ins. Said WM “I learned a lot about how to move people. I learned a lot about staying mission focused. I learned a lot about what it means to lead under challenging circumstances and what it means to lead both friends and foes.” 

A plebe, younger by three years, said WM was the only cadet officer who paid regular visits to the middle school cadets. “He seemed genuinely interested in how I was doing. The fact that he made a point just to come down tells you something about his caring character. We were the low men on the totem pole.”

In early May 1998, WM was at the peak of his military school years – about to graduate with an Associate’s degree in liberal arts and continue his education at Johns Hopkins University. About 2,000 cadets, relatives and staff jammed the pews in the campus chapel for the commencement, as the 19-year-old First Captain took the podium to deliver his final speech. In the audience, seated with her parents and two daughters, WM’s mother watched her son speak, ramrod straight in his blue uniform festooned with badges and medals. She could hardly contain her pride. WM had begged her to leave this place, but she made him stay. “I made the right decision,” she thought. 

CAREER PATHS GAIN EXPERIENCE BEFORE POLITICS

WM would go on to become an Army paratrooper and officer in Afghanistan, Rhodes Scholar, White House fellow, investment banker, and chief executive for one of the nation’s largest poverty-fighting nonprofits before being elected Governor of Maryland in his first bid for elective office. 

Looking back, WM was already thinking about a future in politics when he gave an interview shortly after graduating from military school, about life in military schools. “Every time I go back to New York, I see my old neighborhood deteriorating and I ask myself, ‘What can I do about it?’ Politics is where I can do something about the problems in our country.”

Editor’s notes:

• WM’s career story is based on a news article by Sydney Trent, published by the Washington Post in October 2022. 
• Normally the identity of the person, schools attended, and career jobs are not included for several reasons: (a) protect the privacy of the person so the full story may be told without fear of embarrassment re some details and (b) some facts may be distracting (e.g. X went to Duke? I hate Duke so I won’t read that story…..). However, Moore’s identity as a Governor could be easily Googled, his personal story is so inspiring and he had already consented to interviews by a news reporter for publication so there seems to be no need to preserve his anonymity. 
• WM took full advantage of his opportunity to accept military discipline while showing compassion for others when necessary. Of course, not all military school experiences yield the same result. The Editor attended a military academy’s 12^th grade graduation ceremony involving a distant second cousin, son of a USMC fighter plane pilot; years later, it was learned that the military school graduate had become dependent upon (illegal) drugs and died at a (too) young age.