#002 - Plebe Summer Organization with guest Christian Blanchard USNA Class of 2017

In this episode, your host Grant Vermeer introduces for the audience how plebe summer is organized.

He and his close friend and 26th company shipmate Christian Blanchard explain the various roles for midshipmen detailers during plebe summer.  

Grant served as the regimental commander during plebe summer for the class of 2020 and Christian chose to be a platoon leader.  During the academic year that followed Grant served as the Sixth battalion commander and Christian was his executive officer (XO).  

They provide some sage advice for plebes thinking about how to approach plebe summer and tell some hilarious stories including Grant being summoned to the Commandant of Midshipmen's office due to a plebe picking flowers.

00:00 Welcome to Academy Insider: Navigating the Naval Academy Experience

00:40 Diving Into Plebe Summer Organization: An Insider's Guide

01:17 Special Guest Christian Blanchard: Insights and Stories from a Former Platoon Commander

01:57 Christian's Journey to the Naval Academy: A Personal Story

04:13 The Structure and Organization of Plebe Summer Explained

13:35 The Regimental Staff: Roles, Responsibilities, and Personal Experiences

21:53 Company Commanders and Plebe Summer Traditions

28:43 Navigating Plebe Summer: Tips and Tricks

28:50 The Art of Sending Packages: A Guide for Loved Ones

29:57 Blue and Gold: The Heart of Naval Academy Spirit

33:15 Leadership and Drill: The Core of Plebe Summer

47:42 The Perks and Challenges of Naval Academy Leadership

55:30 Final Reflections: Lessons from Plebe Summer

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The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.

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Transcript

Grant: 0:03

This is your host Grant Vermeer United States Naval Academy class of 2017 and on your academy insider. It's my goal to be your guide through the Naval Academy experience by sharing my stories and providing you insight information into the life of a midshipman. Academy insider is in no way officially affiliated with the United States Naval Academy. All of the content on academy insider is my own and does not reflect the views of the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy, nor the Department of Defense. Welcome to this episode of the Academy insider podcast and today we're going to be talking about the plebe summer organization. Now in future upcoming episodes, we'll be telling a ton of stories about plebe summer and so in order for you to be better able to understand them, I want to walk you through the plebe summer organization, especially for those of you without any prior military experience. Understanding the organization of military units is extremely tough to comprehend. Today we're going to go step by step through all of the different levels of leadership in regards to the plebe summer organization so that way you can better understand the role and responsibility of each team and a unit level of leadership. And with us today, we're extremely lucky to have Christian Blanchard who is one of my best friends, but also a former member of 26 company, a 26 company platoon commander during plebe summer. And again, a tremendous resource, incredibly intelligent about plebe summer and has a ton of great stories with us today. So he'll be able to provide a ton of more insight into this topic. And this is going to be a really awesome episode, so let's get into it. All right. Hey Christian, thanks so much for coming on and being a part of the academy insider podcast. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Yeah man. So for anyone who's a big fan of academy and Saturday, you probably know Chris and he's been very involved. But for those of you who do not know, Christian, if you don't mind just providing them with a little background. Where are you from? Tell us a little bit about your family and then what brought you to the Naval Academy's. Give everyone a little bit of background about who you are.

Christian: 2:09

Sure. My Dad was actually in the navy. He did a 27 year career between, he was enlisted on submarines and then went surface warfare as an officer. Um, so we moved a whole lot. That was obviously a, my entire childhood. I was exposed to the navy and the military life. He didn't go to the Naval Academy, but I found out about it as a young teenager and just kind of latched onto it. I actually want it to be an astronaut. So that was a big motivation for me kind of getting to the academy. And, uh, then I found the marine corps and that became, that was a pretty big shift and that was my primary motivation for the rest of school. What else?

Speaker 1: 2:52

Yeah, let's, uh, give everyone a shadow out of, of your company that you were in. Yeah, yeah. It was in 26 company with a

Speaker 3: 3:00

I wrap. Maybe ride rough. Yeah. Ride rough. Very proud about that. We have a really tight class where a company is, you know, obviously

Speaker 1: 3:09

and uh,

Speaker 3: 3:10

yeah, shameless plug that I'm getting married pretty soon. Uh, mentioned that because that's our, those are our reunions. Weddings are always so far have been really the one opportunity for us to all kind of see each other. So it looks like we'll have well over a dozen of us in a couple of months.

Speaker 1: 3:28

Absolutely. And so what's funny is what you bring that up, it always reminds me, and as cheesy as it is, there's a verse in the Navy, Blue and gold where it talks about after graduation you get scattered far and wide. Uh, dude, I think about that every time we see each other. It's just so amazing because it's so true that when you guys do come back together, when your paths do cross again, you do tell, you tell so many stories of where you've been, what you've done and the love that you have for each other and never goes away. Like Christian and everyone from 26 company in a class 17 like they will always be family. And I'm just so excited and it's for all of us to get together and have a good time. So yeah, that'll be fun. And congratulations to mister blancher dear. Thank. That'd be a married man. All right. But here we go. We'll be jumping into the content here now. So again, we're going to be covering the structure in organization of plebe summer specifically including the roles and responsibilities of all the different units within plebe summer. So for the class of 20 twenty's plebe summer, I was actually fortunate enough to serve as the regimental commander for the class of 2020 and then Christian during his plebe summer, served as a platoon commander for 26 platoon. But for everyone listening probably like, well, what the heck is the regimental commander? What the heck is a platoon commander? So we're going to go through and explain it. So we're going to start at the top. So during plebe summer, there was one regiment, the fourth class regimen, and that comprises everyone in the entire regimen. So Christians, the number guy, Christian, how many people are we talking about when we talk about a regiment regimen is usually about 1200. We had exactly, uh, we had 1,209 on induction day for the entire fourth class regimen. Absolutely. So the Fourth Class Regiment, again about 1200 pleads to start a I day plus the entirety of the detailing staff as well. And then that regiment, so it goes from regiment down two battalions. So within the one regiment, the fourth class regimen there are two battalions Port Battalion in starboard battalion. Now that is just another organizational like step in the chain of command because now each battalion has a certain number of companies. So within port battalion that is going to be Alpha through Hotel Company and in the starboard battalion is India through[inaudible] company. And then they also have administrative control over Tango Company, which we'll talk about a little later. But Tango Company is basically where all of the Midshipman who want to begin their out processing and drop on request. They will go to tango company. So again, you have the fourth class regiment, which then drops down to the battalion and Christian numbers guy. What are we talking about roughly in a battalion,

Speaker 3: 6:09

it just cuts it in half. So about 600 mid ship or 600 plebes per battalion. And you mentioned the detailed staff as well. If my memory's right there about 250 detailers. Yep. In the entire, between the first class in the second class.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Absolutely. So yeah, about 1200 plebes, 250 detailers. We're just shy of about 1500 people in the regiment, which breaks down to about 700 per battalion. Yeah. And then it breaks down to the company. So as you note, there are multiple companies now within the battalion, so we have Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, foxtrot, ABCD, Echo. Well Gosh, there you go. Golf and a hotel. There we go. Obviously I'm not good at the alphabet, but you know, there's the Naval Academy Education for you I guess. Yeah. But so within each company now, numbers guy, Christian, what are we talking about? About the size of a company? 80 plebes is a standard company and then eight squad leaders, two platoon commanders, and then staff. You're talking about 16 detailers are so yep. Per Company. Absolutely. Yeah, exactly. So we're, I mean we're talking roughly are in the 90 range of people per company, plebes and details combined. Now as we break down, each company will also have a company officer, which for those of you who are familiar with the military, the company officer is generally an o, three sometimes and oh four so a navy lieutenant or Marine Corps captain or potentially a major in the Marine Corps, sometimes act as company officers. Now each company will also have an Sel, which stands for senior enlisted leader. So that senior enlisted leader again is a senior listed. So for the navy we're talking east seven and above. So chief petty officers or senior chief petty officers. And then in the marine corps, because Christian, I'll let you explain this one, but basically it's e six and above in the Marine Corps and Christian, I'll let you kind of give some background on that.

Speaker 3: 8:04

The organization's just a little bit different. In the Marine Corps. There's a major leadership step in the navy that occurs between e six and e seven so in the navy you go from being a first class petty officer to being a chief petty officer. And that's where it's a significant step with regard to leadership and status in the navy. That step occurs one rank earlier in the marine corps, you go from being a noncommissioned officer as a sergeant, as an[inaudible] to being a staff noncommissioned officer as an e six a staff sergeant. So during plebe summer and at the Naval Academy in general, you'll find a aesics staff sergeants and east seven gunnery sergeants fulfilling the same roles as[inaudible] chief petty officers and senior chief petty officers.

Speaker 1: 8:50

Absolutely. Thanks for that explanation. And so then with that, that's the company leadership and now each company has two platoons that fall underneath it. And so that platoon will have a number. So you could be anywhere from first platoon to 30th platoon. And so when we talk about platoons during plebe summer, this will directly correlate to their academic year company. So when we talk about being 26 company, rough riders, me and Christian both for our time at the academy, that means we were in 26th platoon during plebe summer. So for all the people in 25th and 26th platoon that comprises November company. So my, during my plebe summer I was in November company 26 platoon. And so that's where that organization now dropping down to the smallest unit level is the squads. So platoons, we talked about companies having about 80 plebes. So again split that in half of the student has about 40 plebes and then each squad roughly has roughly 10 plebes and so your squads are going to be led by a squad leader. Now that squad leader can either be a first class or second class Mitch Shipman and it is their job to literally train the plebes day in and day out. Like that is the most impact that you can have on like 10 individuals as being a squad leader because you are with them 24 seven if you have any input on that. Christian,

Speaker 3: 10:18

in my opinion, a squad leaders, the most important role in all plebe summer. And I think that translates directly into the fleet, that the lowest levels of leadership are the most important to me and the most significant way because that's where I don't like using cliches. That's where the rubber meets the road. That's where the most practical decisions take place. That's where in plebe summer, that's where plebes learn the most is from their squad leader. Whether it's good or bad, that's where they have the best or the worst impressions of the Naval Academy is based on the example that's set by the squad leader.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Absolutely. And and as you hear stories and as plebes write letters back home, you're probably very frequently hear about the squat, right, Eric? Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:00

You spend the most time with them. You spend the most time with them, the most control over your life.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Absolutely. So I mean, I remember my two guys, so I had a Midshipman Ensign Cox, he was my first verse set, sorry, squad leader. Oh, classic. I mean that was his. So funny enough guys, I wonder if they follow this. Do you know if any of those guys, I've had a couple of them comment on my stuff, so I really hope they listened to us. But to this day, the funniest introduction of all time, plebe summer, I'm pretty sure I think about his all the time. So this guy, and this guy's a goofball, like I grew up to love him so much into the academic year and after graduation, but this guy, he walks up and he introduced himself and he's like, my name is Mitch Shipman and Simcox. And then he paused and waited for everyone to laugh. And he was like, if you ever laugh at my name, I will end your life. And everyone was just like, uh, he was right in front of me when he said it too. And even, let's clarify his name, spelled c, O x. Clx. Absolutely. And Oh, and that look, I'm an extremely immature guy, right? Like I was about to start chuckling and then I found out he was up to Brian right in front of, how were you not going to be, my name is Mitch Shipman and said Cox. And I was like, oh no, I, they told me not to laugh. That was like the one thing I learned about plebe summer was like don't laugh and don't bring attention to yourself and it's like six hours, six hours in and we're really off to a rough start. But I mean like these are stories that we laugh about now to this day and tell to this day and like, but that's, that's what being a squad leader, that's what being at the squad in the platoon level is all about. Right. Like you have such an impact on the lives of all the plebes. All right, so just to recap here, so you have the fourth class regimen. We're talking about 1200 plebes that breaks into two battalions, the Port Battalion and the starboard battalion, which roughly have about 600 plebes each. Now those battalions are in control of different companies. So again, poor battalion is Alpha through Hotel Company and then a starboard battalion is India company through Pod Company and then they also take tango company. Now again, when we're talking about size of companies, we're looking at about roughly 80 plebes per company, which then breaks into the platoons, which are numbered platoon. So first to 30th platoon trave, roughly about 40 plebes in each. And then we break down to the squad level and each squad for squat, second squad, third squad for squad, all have roughly 10 plebes each. So that's what the organization is at large. Now we're going to kind of dive a little bit into the roles and responsibilities of each of these levels of leadership and kind of what everyone does. And so I'm gonna take the first one, which is as a regiment, which was the regimental staff. So I had such an amazing experience and honestly to this day, like it is an unparalleled experience to be the regimental commander of plebe summer. So I mean it makes me sound way more important than it was, but like I was the highest ranking midshipman during plebe summer, which is pretty crazy. And it and it was my role and responsibility basically to report to the officer in charge of plebe summer, which for military people is an o five a commander in the navy about everything going on within the fourth class regiment. What I appreciated about the regimental staff, and sometimes some people don't realize this and these are a lot of tough conversations that I had to have with my staff when I was a regimental commander. It is not the regimental staff's job to train the plebes, right? Like we still have to uphold the standards. We've got to enforce anything if we see it, but if you want to have day to day interaction with the Plebes, do not apply for the regimental staff. That is not the role of the regimental staff is not the job of the regimental staff. The regimental staff's job is to do everything they can to support the platoons in the companies to conduct training in the best way possible and to help them out that we can better the plebes ps again at the company in the platoon level and down. That is where the real training happens is the regimental staff job to make sure that all of those units, the smaller units, have everything they need in order to train effectively. And if they needed something, guess what? That's my job to communicate with the officer in charge of plebe summer to get them the resources that they needed. So again, at the regimental level and the regimental commander, it's a very high level overall execution, morale, welfare, just everything that's going on in the regiment falls under the scope and responsibility of the regimental commander. Now, kind of the reason that I wanted to be the regimental commander was during my plebe summer. I remember that the regimental commander gave a, what we call a fireside chat. And those fireside chats resonated extremely well with me. And by the time that I made, by way to become a second classmen shipment in the brigade and was thinking about plebe summer, I knew that I wanted to be able to share my story with as many plebes as possible. And the best way to share my story was to be the regimental commander piece. I gotta have these fireside chats and what a fireside chat is, is the regimental commander gets to sit down with every single company in plebe summer. Just the plebes. I got to kick all of the details out. So just me and the plebes and I just got to talk to him. I got to share my story. I got to share my hardship. During plebe summer. It'd be like, hey look, I was about to leave. I had a really hard time during plebe summer. I let my emotions control my experience and I was like homesick. I was miserable and I had a very defeated attitude and I didn't think I wanted to be here. I didn't think I wanted to do the military and now look at me, right? Like I have completely made the transformation. I have bought in to what the naval academy is all about. And so the last thing that I wanted was for any plea to make a permanent decision based off of temporary emotions. And that was something that I realize not during plebe summer. That was something I realize years down the road was I almost made such a big mistake in my life because the naval academy has literally been the best decision that I've ever made in my life, was sticking it out. Um, so I just wanted to be able to share my story in the hopes that it would positively impact even just a single plead during plebe summer. Um, and that's really why I wanted to get into that. So on the regimental staff now, so that's the reg commander, a regimental staff. We'll have an Xo and executive officer. That's been number two in command. That's the guy that I would consider my doer. So if I ever realized that I needed something done, I'd be like, Hey, Xo, get this done. Like, can you like, hey, we need this, uh, make it happen. And so the Xo was my dewar. And so my Xcel, Matt, like he was absolutely phenomenal. Like he was unbelievable. I can't speak more highly of him. Uh, my man's out in Hawaii now as a SWOT and he was just fantastic. Now he wasn't as good as my battalion Xo. And I'm only saying that because that guy is currently on the podcast right now. But yeah, so during the academic year. Yeah. So yeah, for those of you with the inside joke there. So a Christian was actually my, during the academic year, second semester, first year I was the sixth battalion commander. And so when we get to the academic year, we'll do another recap of the organization and structure of the brigade of midshipmen and the academic year, cause it's a little different than plebe summer. But I was the sixth battalion commander and Christian was my Xo and he was the best and I absolutely love him. So Yup. Alright. Anyway, got to move it on there. So there's an Xo, he gets stuff done. I've had phenomenal exos and everything that I've done. So I've been extremely lucky man. Uh, they make my life super easy. The next piece is the ops. So regimental ops now, plebe summer has a tremendously complex schedule with constantly moving pieces. I think the regimental ops has the hardest job in the entirety of plebe summer from this sheer like stress of making sure everyone gets where they need to go and that everything is running like how it's supposed to and going and playing with the schedule like be in the ops is extremely stressful, but it is an extremely crucial and important piece of plebe summer. Um, there's also responsibilities as well. There's just a lot that like really falls directly into your responsibility again and you just have to handle it. Absolutely. Without a doubt. So then there's also an admin officer on the regimental staff and adjutant that[inaudible] is in charge of the watch bill and I'm so you stay and watch over plebe summer both as detailers and plebes to the adjutants main responsibility as being a charter that watch bill. We have a regimental drill officer who's in charge of all of the drill. And so during plebe summer you do a lot of drill, don't you? Christian do. And so they're in charge of making sure that all drill parades and like the actual drill competitions are going well. They provide a ton of training. There's a PMO, the physical missions officer PMO, and they're in charge of making sure that everyone is meeting the physical mission during plebe cyber. Now we have the honor and character liaison, which is kind of the liaison to the plebe summer staff for all of the honor and character classes, the ethics classes that you take during plebe summer, which is cool. And then there's a safety officer who's in charge of making sure that everything's done well, but also tracking all sick and like injured chits. And we about chits. A chip is a medical authorization to be exempt from certain responsibilities or obligations. So you're sick. All right, well you're exempt from all activity during the day. And you can be s Iq, which stands for sick in quarters. And then same thing, if you're injured, you can get a chit to be like, Hey, I hurt my shins, I have Shin splints, which means I am exempt from running, but I still need to do all upper body activities, et Cetera, et cetera. So the safety officer will track all of that. Now as we talk about staffs, all the different staffs, like battalion staff, we'll have basically all of those same positions and then the company will have a couple less, but they still meet all of the same obligations. But that is the what a staff is comprised of. But that's all the boring stuff. We're not going to worry about that. What I really want to jump into now is making our way down to the battalion. So the battalion, again, it's basically an mere image of what the regimental staff is, but now more focused on a smaller number of individuals to make sure that they're meeting all of the things that are necessary. But now we've jumped down to the companies because this is really the big one. This is where you start to have direct interaction with the plebes. So I'm going to let Christian go here, Christian, if you don't mind telling the people like what's the role and responsibility of a company commander and can you explain kind of how company commanders are selected and how the company commanders work? Like the difference between each set during plebe summer?

Speaker 4: 22:14

Yeah, absolutely. So the entire purpose of plebe summer is to indoctrinate new civilians, to lead them in the oath of office at the beginning of the summer. And over the course of the 50 days of plebe summer, indoctrinate them and transform them into it's indoctrinate, may have some negative connotations in a positive way. I mean introduce them and expose them and teach them and again, like transformed them into the ways of the navy, specifically the Naval Academy, turn them into Midshipman and then present those plebes to the brigade of midshipmen at the end of the year as prepared midshipman that will succeed and become future naval and Marine Corps officers. So that is the primary responsibility is the responsibility of every detail or, but that responsibility is vested in a very specific way in the company commanders. So that's a midshipman. Yeah. Who's responsible for that development of all 80 plead midshipman in the company? The plebe summer staffs, the entire staff from the regiment down is all selected in the spring semester of your second class here. So the junior year there is a series of interviews that take place. It's pretty serious. At the regimental level, the entire, the commandant of Midshipman who's a colonel or a captain, conducts a great series of interviews to figure out who grant was going to be, who the regimental commander is going to be. At the company level. It's a little less formal. Typically the way our company did it, I'm an email was sent out and anybody could put their name in the hat and then company commander and every position actually is pretty competitive because when you company commander isn't necessarily the most prestigious position. Sometimes individuals are dead set on being squad leaders and sometimes the company officers of the academic year switch things around, but the company commander oversees everything about the company. In a way, Captain Greene, who's one of my mentors worded at one time that the unit commander is responsible for the soul of the company, so that company commander represents the image of what that company is. He's not necessarily always going to be the one doing everything. He oversees the entire, he or she oversees the entire operation and is instructing the other detailers what to do. Some of the unique responsibilities company commanders have are uh, in kind of a ceremonial way. They lead parades. Yup. So they stand out in front of the company. They lead drill for the major events, particularly parades, probably the most high profile responsibility a company commander has, who honestly, company commander is often more behind the scenes. There is direct interaction with the plebes, but a lot less, significantly less than than platoon commanders and squad leaders. But every day, every night at blue and gold, which I don't know, is everybody familiar with blue and gold? We have not talked about it yet on the podcast. So if you don't mind explaining what blue gold race. Yeah. So every night during plebe summer and then weekly during the academic year, all the plebes right before lights out taps, which is bedtime. They all gathered together in the passageway in the Poa. And it's an opportunity for squad leaders, for platoon commanders to talk with the Plebes, address any injuries, kind of debrief the day a little bit at a personal level, at the squad level. That's also when males handed out and detailers not investigate the uh, inspect nail for contraband. Any contraband. Yeah, that's right. Some pretty funny content. Give us one good contraband story we're thinking about. Yeah, I think we're thinking about the same one probably wasn't it? Tristin ABS. Absolutely. Talking about trust and tallow. Yeah. I don't know how many pairs it was, but this is the funny thing because a lot of times friends from back home we'll set a really outrageous and silly things to their friends, to the plebes because they know that the details have to inspect it and we're really looking for like junk food, caffeine stuff that they're not allowed to have had magazines. I don't think they can have stuff like that. And our, I don't know who it was that pulled it out. We had some really like hard detailers, pretty old school guys. Like we definitely got hazed and they just very like, it was kinda like full metal jacket kind of scenario. Maybe they were, not to toot their horn too much, but they were old school. They were awesome. And I'm just going to pick somebody. I'm going to say like Irma, Nita, like one of the kind of guy and he pulls out, it was something like three or four pairs of the most beautiful, skimpy little

Speaker 1: 27:18

lace them. But what they say, what'd they say? They say, oh, all right, well I'm going to cut in here on the backside of the said garments were the words booty camp. I remember, cause Trista was in Moscow. So I next and, and look it. I was like staying in there right there as, as whoever the detail was pulling him out. And he's like, oh, are these for you Mister Tello? Are these joint booty camp like you have fun? Oh Man, I remember dying at that mail. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4: 27:58

And it's crazy being, being a plebe. Obviously you feel like you're detailers just are like so quick on their feet like you Julie bootcamp tello. But then would you become a detailers? Like some kind of transformation happens and you have the same kind of stuff with mail and contraband and everything. It's a, yeah. You just inherit something. Absolutely. That was outrageous. I didn't remember that they said that.

Speaker 1: 28:20

Oh yeah, that guy. Oh, I remember that to this day. We also had, we also a couple of just more contraband story. It's just cause we're on the topic. One of our company mates had an uncle who went to west point and so we would constantly send a mail with like west point flags in west point gear and stuff and that was it always easy attention brought to you, right? You easy prey. Absolutely. So as we talked about this for any parents, loved ones, whoever may be listening, I hope these stories can show one of two things. One, all of the details. We'll inspect the package that you send. So that leaves you with two options. One, don't embarrass them. My mom would send little notes on the top of all my packages. Like, Hey boo, love you so much, miss you so much. And like I, yeah, I'm so, for everyone who doesn't know, my nickname is bu it was grown up all the way back home. Absolutely. If you are from the bay area, northern California, like no one knows me as grants like I am boo. So that's what my family calls me. So they were sending me all this mail like, Hey boo, like love you, miss you so much. Oh Am my detailers had a field day with that. So a couple of tricks of the trade here, they can't open sealed envelopes. So if you want to send something that Levy devy then seal it in an envelope within the package. Right. Tip Number One, two. If you are trying to embarrass your plebe then put it right on top. Absolutely. If you're looking to embarrass the person that you send stuff to, people will inspect the staff. So feel free and have a field day. Send some booty camp underwear. That's fantastic. All right. But we got to there from talking about the company commander and talk to get blue and gold so and so

Speaker 4: 30:03

about um, the plebes at the end of the day, our son, I don't remember the times exactly. I think it's like nine o'clock. They're sent, they get 30 minutes of personal time to take care of laundry, write letters, write their thoughts of the day, which we can get to later. And then at nine 30 they come out and there's like five to 10 minutes of mail distribution talking to the squad leaders talking and everything and that it's blue and gold. The company commander silences everybody and then maybe a few company wide announcements by the ops or the admin. They just have to get some practical things out of the way. And the company commander gives his blue and gold speech and it's designed to be this, I don't know, just this motivating speech about anything about the Naval Academy about,

Speaker 1: 30:53

no, she lost literally leaders, upcoming events. Justin Reed,

Speaker 4: 30:59

the company commander, whenever I was a platoon commander, he gave a great speech the night before the first parade or the, the first parade of our set, we were second set and he like pulled something from this book about military leadership and just kind of drew it all together. And those are some of the biggest kind of, I keep wanting to say things like spiritual. I what I mean is like, um, intangibles. You know, you have a lot of really like physical memories of plebe summer, but some of the greatest like motivating and tangible kind of emotionally stirring. That's what I'm looking for emotionally starring moments or these blue and gold speeches. Um, good company commanders can like really reach in and um, and inspire the plebes in a really good way. Absolutely. That's one of the, I think one of the most significant direct interactions that the company commander is going to have with this[inaudible].

Speaker 1: 31:50

Absolutely. And just remember listening, so little pop quiz here is how many platoons are in a company? Give you a couple of seconds here to answer. Mr. Blanchard, what's the answer? What's the answer to two platoons. One company. Now what's cool about plebe summer is there are two sets of detailers. So after about three weeks, the detailers will turn over. So you actually get two sets of detailers. And so the company commanders, while we're talking about here at the company level, the company commanders, they will, it'll always be one of the sets will be someone from the first platoon and then the other set will be from the second platoon. So for us in November company we had a 25th platoon, someone who was in the 25th company during the academic year who acted as the company commander. And then for the second set of plebe summer we had someone from the 26 company during the academic year come in as a company commander. So you will get one of each for sure.

Speaker 4: 32:50

And that's significant too because every academic year company, they tend to have very different personalities. And so at the platoon level, those personalities are going to manifest themselves just at the platoon. But at the company level you get a kind of a different taste. You get a broader perspective about the brigade as a whole just by getting two different leadership personalities from the different companies.

Speaker 1: 33:13

Yes, absolutely. All right, let's drop down to the two level. So again, we'll tune level. These will be numbers. So anywhere from first to 30th platoon during plebe summer, which again directly correlates to your academic year company. So again, me and Christian, we're, we claim we are from the 26 company, which means during your time at the academy we were in 26 company, which again, during plebe summer meant we are a part of 26th platoon. Um, now every platoon has the platoon commander and during the class of 2020 is plebe summer, the 26 platoon had the greatest platoon commander of all time. Mr. Christian blade answered commanders. I at least got it true. You're right. I was trying to get a little compliment in there, but absolutely for Dave SB as well, it was honestly a result, uh, the everything that our detailers did for us that made the detailed staff from 26 platoon again be so awesome. But Christian, if you don't mind, we talked about the roles of the company commander. What's the role of the platoon commander? What's a platoon commander look like on a day to day basis? And with that, why did you want to do that job? Why did you want to be a platoon commander?

Speaker 4: 34:26

So I think the easiest way to divide up continuing their responsibilities is kind of into two pretty specific parts. The first is pretty obvious as platoon commander, you're responsible to and accountable for 40 played midshipman and those you have four squads as well. So we've got four squads of 10 plebes each and that's at during my plebe summer it was two second class midshipman squad leaders and to Firstclass midshipman squad leaders and they report directly to me about the state of their plebes, the training of the Plebes, physical health, safety, mental health and safety. Literally everything. Like I said, the squad leaders have the most direct involved role of any detailers and I'm the first midshipman leadership to whom that status is reported and then that's the chain of command. Then that goes up to the company commander is necessary. The most unique thing about the platoon commander position is that it's the lowest level of a detailed leadership that has other detailers reporting to them. So the platoon commander is four squad leaders. The squad leader's responsibility is to lead, plead Mitch Shipman. But now as platoon commander, I had four squad leaders reporting directly to me about their physical health and safety, the mental health and safety, everything about the 40 platoons in my command. Yep. So that's a unique leadership challenge because obviously for particularly for the first class squad leaders that you're responsible to that are, uh, that you're leading essentially.

Speaker 1: 35:59

Yeah. I mean those you're saying how it is they're reporting to you, right? Like you are, you are there in this point. You are there operational commander, but it's weird because you guys are really good friends.

Speaker 4: 36:11

Yeah. We went through flip summer together. I was particularly close with, uh, one of my roommates was, was one of my squad leaders and then my other roommate was the company commander. I think we did a really good job about that because we took ourselves seriously but not too seriously. And we never really felt the need to be adversary about much at all. I think we did a good job of being on the same page and communicating well, which communication is everything everywhere in life.

Speaker 1: 36:36

Yeah. But I'm just going to button in really quick. One of the really unique things about being a detailer and that you get from being a part of the plebe summer detail is experiencing real peer leadership for the first time because like there is something so difficult about like a, I'm really good friends with this person, but you need to have a very serious conversation with them if they're not upholding the standard or meeting the expectations or not accomplishing what they need to accomplish. And when you add the rank structure of like having squad to platoon a platoon to company where you guys are technically like you're all midshipman first class at the end of the day, like you're in the same class, but plebe summer adds this rank that the plebes see as like, oh no, this is like, this is different. Like they see someone with three stripes on their solar park. It's significant. Right? And so it is very crazy because for the detailers it doesn't seem like much, it just seems like you're working with your friends, but to the plebes it's real, right? Like there's a real distinction between the different levels of leadership and that you have to treat that very seriously as a detailer, which adds a whole nother dynamic of leadership in that peer leadership aspect is really, really cool but really difficult. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Now you said there are two parts about mainly about being a platoon commander of us jumps number two,

Speaker 4: 38:06

so that first part is the leadership aspect. As platoon commander I owned 40 plebe Midshipman, four squad leaders possible to an accountable for them. The second part is the platoon commander is responsible for drill for his platoon, which is one of the big things that attracted me to it. I had the privilege of serving on the Naval Academy silent drill platoon or the jolly Rogers. I did that for the first three years. The academy loved it. We were responsive. We spun rifles and everything. If anybody, anybody listen to the podcast is seeing that. Yeah, I like the army. Navy and air force have teams and everything, but the Marine Corps is silent. Drill platoon is the epitome of drill worldwide in my opinion. And, uh, anyway, I enjoyed that a lot and I wanted to carry that through. The platoon commander has a unique role in drill because, uh, in each set there are what are called drill competitions. So, and I don't even know if everybody listening is familiar with drill. So let's go over real quick baby. Right? So let me give like the most basic definition that can, so drill is the organized following of orders that are given by a unit leader. Discipline, discipline. Yeah. So you've probably seen it if anybody seen military movies mentioned full metal jacket that's marching together in cadence in step, that's flanking movements, turning at the same time, shifting positions with a rifle in hand. All of those things constitute drill and there's unarmed drill, which is without rifles. And there's arm drill, which is with rifles. So each plebe at the beginning of fleeps, summer's issued a rifle and m 14 old m 14 wooden stock rifles. They're unloaded, obviously in the firing pins are removed and most of them have a lead pipe drilled into the barrel. So they're in operational. But, um, they're used for drill and they're treated with the same sort of like sacred seriousness that any of you ladies and gentleman who'd been to bootcamp, it's the same thing. You don't lose your rifle, you take care of it, you keep it clean and you treat it as a precious thing. So drill is pretty much a daily part of pleads lives. And it's, to me, it's a beautiful thing because it's one of the most important parts of that indoctrination and transformation process because there are very few things at the Naval Academy. They're in a more different from civilian life than drill. And there are a few things that the naval academy, that's a more dramatic shift from anything you've done in your life before because you're shoved into this environment with 40 people that you don't know and you're being yelled at by another group of people that you don't know. And then you're shoved into one big group and told to get in a square and to face the same direction and to stick your arms out to get the spacing and to stand in line. Kind of like you did when you were in kindergarten, but now it's a lot more stressful. Yeah. Now it's very serious. But what it does is it teaches you so many things that teaches you how to work as a team. It teaches you discipline, how to follow orders quickly and decisively. It teaches you confidence because again, it's something so different from anything you've ever done. And if you give any serious effort at drill during plebe summer, you'll be excellent. I mean, you become excellent at that and really good. It's something so, and everybody, every, you know, if they're led, right, like an entire platoon of plebes can witness how much better they become at this one thing by the end of the summer. So I've talked about this a lot more than I talked about the leadership. So that's obviously one of the big reasons that attracted me to be platoon commander. I talked so much from the plebes perspective about how amazing it is to like watch that transformation, but from the platoon commanders level, being able to stand in front of the plebes issue confident orders and train them in practice with them like a coach. You know, coaching is very important to me. So you're coaching them at the same time that you're giving them the orders and watching them follow through with the coaching that you're giving. It's a very rewarding experience. And so like I said, there's a general competition and first set and in second set as I served as second set. So that was the second half of plebe summer. Our unique responsibility was taking the plebes from where first set had gotten them. So at this point they know how to wear their uniforms, they know how to carry out the routine of plebe summer. Now more or less now we're kind of completing that intro process, but preparing them, we're the ones who prepare them to enter the brigade of midshipmen where the detailers that have the responsibility of presenting them to the brigade. Yeah. Would you say that that was probably the best part of your job then was getting to put those final touches? Yeah. Into this group of leaves or what would you say the best part about being a platoon commander was? I think overall, I was thinking about this today I think and it just as background, I also did plebe summer as a second class, so I did two plebe summer details. The reason I did that and the reason I was passionate about plebe summer is because there was never another time at the Naval Academy where everything is, where everything matters so much and everything is taken so seriously. Like all again, like the intangibles, the pride of being a Midshipman, the pride of following standards, of adhering to standards of really believing in the academy when everything's not cold and grade during the winter and whenever academics aren't involved, it's just pure military and I love that is the best time of year to me. And so just getting to train the plebes and watch them grow I think was my favorite thing. And for some reason like for you was just a good number for me. Like getting to that was a good size unit again to kind of be able to own and assist in transforming apps and then yeah, it's a very rewarding experience. Having worked as hard as we possibly could. Our entire staff was amazing for November company, particularly six platoon who yeah, I had no worries at all that are plebes didn't belong in 26 company in the academic year and because I knew that we'd done our job, you know, so that was very rewarding to before hello night, which is a, the end of plebe summer whenever we introduced the plebes to, to the brigade. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:53

And so I, I apologize, I don't want to cut in because it's so true when you turn over the plebes to the brigade of midshipmen at reform and you go into the academic year, it's a source of pride, right? Like when you, when you turn over these people that are well trained and they know what they're doing, like it is a major source of pride for all the details to be like, yeah. Like it was freaking difficult or we put it in a lot of hours, a lot of energy, a lot of effort, a lot of emotion. But we succeeded and we accomplished our objective of making them ready for the academic year and that, that's a really good feeling and that's why I think plebe summer detail at large, regardless of your role or responsibility is so rewarding. And so it really is. Cool. Let's push on here too. Uh, what do you think the, uh, most challenging part of being a platoon commander was and then with that usually is kind of leads to what was the best leadership lesson you learned during your time as a platoon commander?

Speaker 4: 45:52

I think I kind of have one thing that answers both questions. I think, uh, I figured it out kind of early on, but one of the toughest things was learning when to back off because I wasn't a squad leader. You know, I was platoon commander and that means there was a very important part of the chain of command between me and the plebes. And so allowing the squad leaders to do their job, trusting them to do the job. That was their responsibility, which was, again, I've already described it, but it's the most, whatever you want to say, like intimate level of leadership, like they know everything about their 10 pleats. And then I had to trust them. And there were times early on whenever it was difficult to trust, you know, whenever I wanted a particular place, two, wherever I wanted to say very particular things to a specific plea, you know, because of a problem that was going on. But I knew I had to back away because even three or four days in those squad leaders knew their plebes way better than I did. And so if I was needed to talk to the police, then they would tell me. And that was something that I established early on, you know? And that's what we have to do as leaders is whenever you're about to enter into a training environment, especially, you've got to talk to the subordinate leaders that are in your charge and tell them what you expect of them and then how you see your job, and then ask them what they see your job to be, you know, and then what they expect from you. So that was something I really tried to lay out was that I trusted them. I wasn't going to try and badger them about kind of a whole array of things. I was trusting them to come to me. No, absolutely. So, so yeah, I think that answers both your questions. You know, a big challenge, but also big leadership lesson is that whenever you in charge of subordinate leaders, you have to trust them.

Speaker 1: 47:40

Absolutely. All right, we're going to move onto a little bit more fun, a conversation here. We've got a little, uh, insight from people wanting to know what do they think, a little bit about the perks and then some of the tougher, undesirable or less glamorous parts of our respective jobs. So I'm going to go first as the regimental commander. The good is that perks, everything, Dude. Everything. It was the coolest thing in the world. All right, so check it out. Like being a part of the regimental staff, like basically, yeah,

Speaker 4: 48:17

I'll just summarize it. Grant and basically had his own yacht. I basically,

Speaker 1: 48:22

I basically had my own yacht. I wish I was kidding, but like for real, so there's this thing called Wolverine, which is like the superintendent's yacht. Now during plebe summer there were multiple Wolverine we call Wolverine cruises, which are like two hour like underwears we get on the yacht and they make a bunch of really awesome food and that like the, the superintendent of the Naval Academy, like hosted this party on his yacht. And so like, oh, I gotta do it like four times because there's like multiple ones throughout plebe summer.

Speaker 4: 48:52

Does he pop flies? You've got to do it

Speaker 1: 48:56

twice. I might be exaggerating, I'm probably exaggerating. So yeah, it probably was first.

Speaker 4: 49:00

But like Lord, if this whole time really talking trash about the glories of having five stripes and be in a cursed with only through, Oh man commanders, we had a little bit too much work to be going out on boats in the middle of the day.

Speaker 1: 49:16

Absolutely. Hey schmooze babies. Schmooze. You want the real job description of regimental commander is schmooze.

Speaker 4: 49:24

Yeah. Excels in schmoozing with higher rankings.

Speaker 1: 49:28

Well see so check this out. So we have during plebe summer we have a ton of distinguished speakers come talk to the plebes and as a regimental commander it was my job to one, meet them, greet them and then introduce them to the brigade. So I gotta have like full on conversations with Nathan fick who's a author of the book one bullet away and is now the CEO of a cybersecurity company called end game. And it's like get to talk to him if someone in the cyber operations major and interested in the field, like talk about the perks of the job. Like by being the regimental commander, I got to like meet and talk to this guy. And then because of that, I got actually have a one on one sit down conversation with him later into the academic year because we built that relationship and that connection. So that was really cool. I also liked that I had the ability to go and witness all of plebe summer from all the different companies because you establish a culture within your own platoon and your own company that you get so used to that, that it's almost refreshing. Go see and witness how all of the other platoons and companies execute to still achieve the same objective of plebe summer. Right. We talked about in the previous episode of command and Renee and about the purpose of plebe summer, but there are so many ways that you can go about actually getting to that point. And so to be able to see that and go witness how every platoon and company decided to execute that was really cool. So to get to see all of that and introduce high level speakers and go on the soups yacht, Wolverine Cruise, baby. So many perks to be in the regimental commander. Now there were some less glamorous parts of the job. Specifically when I talk about being the rich commander, like again, you are responsible for everything that goes on in the regiment. So I kid you not on the way back from sports period, one day the commandant was looking out of his window and saw a plebe pick a flower off one of the flower bushes and tea court. But he couldn't see who it was. But he was mad, but he didn't know who it was. So what happens was when I, I get summons to the, to the commandant's office and stand there at attention for like 15 minutes as he's screaming about me about how my regimen has no discipline and like can't do anything right. And that they have no respect for the yard and no respect for anything on there. And they're picking all these flowers, right? Like, like God, like literally one plead decided to pick a flower and I'm the one getting screamed at. Right. But like, but here's the thing, that's what it's about. Like I like the

Speaker 4: 52:01

scope and responsibility. I mean who else is, I don't know. Who else is he going to fuss at? You know, he's not going to go to the company over. Like that's not like you're the representative and that's for me to button in just for a second please schmoozing and everything aside. Like somebody's got to represent the brigade to you know, notable people who come to speak and that's not a bunch of nonsense or anything. Somebody has got to do it and so you're going to pick somebody that's well qualified and that can speak well and that can not, somebody like me, you know, I wasn't designed for like register. I did exactly what I was supposed to do and I can talk to like Oh threes and enlisted and below like I don't go and have these like schmoozy conversations. Somebody has got to do it and again, like you were the representative for the entire detailed staff in the entire regimen and so the commandant is going to fuss at you because then you trickle it down to everybody. I don't remember being told to tell the police not to pick flowers, but I feel like probably were, you know, but that's the kind of stuff, you know, one plead does something and then grant tells, you know, the battalion commanders who tell the company commanders who tell us to tell the plebes to stop doing stupid stuff. Yup.

Speaker 1: 53:26

Absolutely. And then what's also interesting, and it goes back to exactly how you answered your piece about what would the most challenging thing about being platoon commander. It was, yeah,

Speaker 4: 53:36

I had a feeling that was gonna really that was going to click with you too

Speaker 1: 53:40

is dealing with staff who is not performing as expected. When we talk about holding your peers accountable, that is an extremely difficult thing to do. Right? And when you're in that position where you have the five stripes, like you have to be careful in how you do it because the last thing you want is people not being willing to be forthcoming and come talk to you when they have problems. And so trying to find that balance of being approachable, being kind, but also being very firm. And upholding the standard and then dealing with people on my staff when they were not performing as expected. Cause here's the thing, I'm young for my grade and there are a ton of people that were prior enlisted or went to prep school or went to college for a year. So I'm sitting there as this 19 year old kid, like having stern conversations with 22, 23 year olds that are technically my peers and being like, you need to get your stuff together. Like that is not a fun conversation to have. And like that is the thing that people don't see that or just the tremendous leadership opportunities and experiences that you get during plebe summer. If he is in plebe summer, it's serious, right? Like there's no other way to put it besides like when you're in it, it's so real that like those conversations and those scenarios are real and the practice, real leadership. So, all right. We've gone for a while and we have provided so much value to everyone here. So Christian, thank you so much, uh, for her and on and talking about all this. Um, I hope everyone learned a little bit about the plebe summer structure and organization and I hope you continue to listen to academy inside or to learn more about the naval academy. But before we go last parting words, Christian Blanche shirt. From the perspective now have, having been a detailed and a graduate of the Naval Academy, what would you tell plebe Vermeer or plead Blanchard going into plebe Simon?

Speaker 4: 55:42

I'd definitely tell, tell them two very different things. I think they had a lot of things are going through my mind. The first thing that kind of popped in is again, a little bit of a Cliche, but it's to like take it seriously but not too seriously. You know, I think particularly what I'd tell Blanchard is to look to grant to learn how to like look out for others, you know, to learn how to think outside yourself a little bit. You know, cause I know we kind of both did that, but at least grant was the one who kind of did it for me multiple times throughout plebe summer setting. An example for me and other people in our class too. It's really easy to get bogged down and to only think about yourself and to only think about how difficult it is. And so from grants perspective on, Oh, he had that experience too. And so maybe from his perspective, he didn't help a lot of other people. You know, because it's a very, it can be a very internalized experience and it shouldn't be, you know? So I think it's not a competition, you know, the way that you excel during plebe summer is learning how to, is that it's not about you. There it is. I finally worked at, Dude, it's mentor. My big mentor was Captain Greene and that was one of the three things he said in any given conversation was that it's not about you. And that is such an important lesson in all of life. Everything from being a plea through being a detailer, to be in a graduate, to, you know, getting married soon, you know, none of that is or was about me. And that shifts your perspective. It makes you think about others first and makes you realize that that's truly what it's about. When everybody does that, you can't, you can't beat a team like that. You know when everybody is deciding that it's about everybody else, you know that a tight team.

Speaker 1: 57:30

I'm so glad that you said that because that's like my number one overarching advice when people are like, how do I do as well during plebe summer? Like how can I be good during plebe summer? If you want to be good during plebe summer B in elite teammates, be the ideal teammate. If you can be a fantastic teammate and you realize that it's not about you and then it's about the success of the squad in the platoon, in the company and you're willing to help others and you think of yourself less often than you do about the people next to you. That's how you're great during plebe summer if you are an ideal teammates.

Speaker 4: 58:13

Yeah. Oh hundred percent because you know, maybe a lot of plebes go on a plebe summer and, and it's not always this kind of like really selfish sounding thing, but you, everybody wants to like excel and seem good from the detailers perspectives. You know, nobody wants to like be hated by the detailers. But if you focus on that, obviously you're only thinking about yourself and your, you're on excelling. But whenever you decide that it's not about you, you would do excel in front of the detailers for the right reasons. You know, and you form tight knits with your classmates without trying to actively like be cool and be a friend or something. You just act selflessly. And those relationships manifest themselves naturally. You know, you build confidence because you're doing good things constantly. And so it's a cycle that continues to feed itself. You know? I mean that's so absolutely to Blanchard, to Vermeer, to everybody is listening to you. It's just not about you.

Speaker 1: 59:12

That's good stuff. It is. Christian, thank you so much for coming on, sir, and I love talking to you. I'm so glad that we get this opportunity to share our stories and provide, provide a little feedback and provide a little insight and provide a little advice for people about to come through so it means the world to continue this relationship. Thank you so much for coming on and for everyone listening. Take care. I hope you all have a great day and hope he gets in you to listen to academy insider. Thanks. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of the academy and inside our podcasts with Christian Blanchard. Please leave me a review on iTunes and be sure to subscribe to this podcast. If you want to know more about plebe summer, check out my online video course in which I go over in detail about how someone should prepare for please summer, physically, mentally, emotionally, and logistically. You can find that and articles about plebe summer on my webpage, www.academy inside.com for any links that we discussed in the show. They're all listed in the show notes. I'll provide a ton of resources and links so you guys can put some visuals to what I'm talking about in this podcast and I hope this was extremely helpful. Again, I'm grant for Mirror your academy insider and thank you so much for letting me be your guide to the Naval Academy.