When Rachel O. Smith tells people that her son, Michael, is attending the United States Air Force Academy, the reactions aren't always very understanding or supportive.
"Sometimes you'll get somebody going 'Your kid's so smart. Why didn't he just go to college?'"
"Like it's a punishment," adds Dr. Kim Hurlbut, whose son Josh is a junior mechanical engineering major at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. "You sent them to military school."
But for these young people, acceptance is the fulfillment of a longtime dream. Smith says they have a video from 2001, after the Sept. 11 attacks, in which Michael declares his intention to go to the Air Force Academy. He was 8 years old. Now he is a senior at the Air Force Academy and serves as an instructor pilot while studying civil engineering and Arabic.
Hurlbut's son Josh and Teri Bunce's son Patrick Mills Bunce, a senior economics major at the U.S. Naval Academy who will be a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps when he graduates, both made their decisions in junior high school.
The military academies are in the top 10 institutions of higher education -- top-flight colleges as well as military training facilities.
Smith says, "Very little of the population knows how elite this is."
The academies have extremely rigorous admission policies and pre-term, six-week basic training courses that eliminate all but the strongest. School itself is a physically, mentally and emotionally challenging course with a strict code of honor and, when it's over, cadets and midshipmen must commit at least five years of their lives to the armed services.
"It's not your ordinary college experience for the students or the parents," Hurlbut says.
For the cadets/midshipmen and their families, it's a culture shock. That's where the parents' associations come in.
Each academy has a club that acts as a support network, giving encouragement to the cadets/midshipmen and giving parents the information they need to understand what their children are experiencing each year.
That's particularly helpful for the Bunce, Hurlbut and Smith families, who don't have military academy backgrounds.
"It's like being dropped into a foreign culture," Hurlbut says. "Terminology, abbreviations, whether they can come home or not, whether they can even call home or not. It's great to have those parents ahead of you [that] you can call."
They also encourage the cadets/midshipmen through care packages and goody boxes. In the summer, each club hosts a send-off meeting or party to help prepare them for what's to come and to begin to establish bonds among the families.
And, in December, there's the annual All Academies Holiday Celebration, this year on Dec. 28 at the Capital Hotel with master of ceremonies 2nd Lt. Blake Albrecht, recent Air Force Academy graduate and a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Arkansas parents' associations for the Air Force, Military and Naval academies rotate as hosts for the invitation-only gala, which is for cadets/midshipmen at the three big academies as well as the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and their escorts, families, alumni and special guests. It's an evening of programs and a formal dinner with traditional military toasts and presentation of the cadets and midshipmen, all designed to, as Smith says, "celebrate and honor the commitment that our cadets and midshipmen have taken, have sworn to to defend our nation."
This year it's the Air Force Academy Parents' Association's turn to host, with Smith as the chairman.
"The tradition and reverence displayed at this event is like none other," Smith says. "It's a scary task, especially not being military, to do it right."
But she observed Bunce, last year's chairman, and Hurlbut, who will take over next year, is watching closely to see how it's done.
After the last two years at other venues, the celebration is returning to the Capital Hotel.
"I don't think you can beat the elegance and tradition here," Bunce says. "It's just a beautiful venue."
She adds, "Seeing them in their uniforms, you just can't beat it. I have a tendency to get emotional about all of it anyway."
That's something they and many other parents share -- that mixture of pride, joy and even fear. Their children aren't typical college students. When they graduate, they will be commissioned into the armed forces. In the post-Sept. 11 world, graduates of the academies are nearly guaranteed they will be deployed.
Smith recalls her own tearful reaction when Michael was accepted.
"It's not because it was my dream for him to go there," she says. "I tried to talk him out of it. But he knew what he was getting into. It's more because of all the hard work that our kids went through to get in to do this, to give of themselves. There was the opportunity -- the granting of their wish. But it's also upsetting as a parent."
It's impossible to escape the reality, even at the holiday celebration, which includes a Prisoners of War/Missing in Action ceremony.
"They've got this special heart to serve," Smith says. "Less than 1 percent of our population steps up like that. They do that knowing full well they could get a scholarship anywhere."
These young people have chosen a difficult road in order to serve and protect their country, and the parents' clubs do what they can to make that road just a bit easier for them and for their families. For people who want to help, the associations all accept donations that help fund the care packages and the special events.
"It's a new experience for everyone," Smith says. "We're all in this together and will be there for one another in times of strife."
For more information, contact Rachel Smith at [email protected].
High Profile on 12/21/2014