or the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.
But Representative Roberts believed his appointments should be merit-based. And so he had ambitious young men like me come to his office to be interviewed by a panel of retired generals and admirals who lived in his district.
After we’d gone to the post office to take a civil service exam and scored well enough on it, we were brought before this ad hoc board of military heavyweights at the congressman’s office. The board he put together had two tasks. First, to determine whether an applicant had what it took to make it at a service academy. Second, to decide which academy an applicant was best suited for. Since my dad didn’t know anyone in high places, I was grateful to have a chance to land an appointment on merit. I had a shot.
I was nervous going to my interview, uncomfortably dressed in my sport coat and tie, but I was excited, too. I’d devoured books about the military and about aviation since I learned how to read. I’d paid attention. So I was prepared when I finally sat down in front of that panel of four senior officers for their very formal twenty-minute proceeding.
The retired Army general seemed to enjoy lobbing questions. “Mr. Sullenberger,” he said, “can you tell me which branch of the service has the most aircraft?”
I assumed most applicants would give the obvious answer: the U.S. Air Force. But I knew this was a trick question. And I had done my homework. I’d studied the specifics of each branch of service and the aircraft they used. “Well, sir,” I said, “if you’re including helicopters in your count, the U.S. Army would have the most aircraft.”
The retired general smiled. I was passing the audition. As we continued talking, he seemed eager to have me go to West Point. But I was pretty straightforward that day. I wanted to fly jets in the Navy or the Air Force, and I didn’t want to go to West Point.
As things turned out, Representative Roberts offered the Air Force Academy appointment to another applicant. He gave me the Naval Academy appointment. Then, as fate would have it, the boy with the Air Force slot declined to take it. And so I moved up from the alternate spot.
I was eighteen years old and bound for Colorado. I would be receiving the full ride of a first-class education. In return, I agreed to pay my country back by serving five years as an active-duty Air Force officer.
I ARRIVED at the Air Force Academy on June 23, 1969, and as a kid from rural Texas, it was an eye-opening moment to meet the other cadets, who hailed from all over the country. Yes, a few of the 1,406 young men in my entering class were wealthy boys from elite families who got there through their fathers’ connections. More were sons of military officers, some from families with long military traditions. But once all of us had made our way through long lines to get our heads shaved, it felt as if those distinctions no longer mattered. It would be the same grueling road for all of us. Only 844 of the 1,406 who arrived that day would end up graduating.
We were welcomed to the academy on a gorgeous Colorado morning when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. From that day on, I was amazed by the West. You could see for a hundred miles in any direction, and the mountains were right there—a pretty stunning sight for a boy from the flatlands of North Texas.
The academy grounds were architecturally dramatic, and at the time, the buildings were fairly new. The Air Force Academy had been completed just twelve years earlier; the first class graduated in 1959. If I made it through all four years, I’d be in the class of 1973, which would be just the fifteenth graduating class. The first female cadets wouldn’t arrive until 1976, three years after I left.
I was pretty nervous that day. I didn’t know what to expect. Unlike some new cadets, I wasn’t aware of how intense the hazing was going to be. Once we had put away our street clothes and gotten into our drab, olive-green fatigue uniforms, the upperclassmen showed up and started yelling at us.
“Stand up straight! Suck your gut in!”
“Push your chest out! Get those shoulders back and down!”
“Get those elbows in! Get your chin in, mister!”
“Keep those eyeballs caged straight ahead!”
Did it shake me up? Of course it did. At age eighteen, I lacked the life experiences to put it in perspective. I was a kid straight from my comfortable upbringing, and all of a sudden I was thrust into a situation where I didn’t know which way was up. It was disorienting.
It is natural to question the utility of such theatrics. Do I think it was necessary? I’m still not sure. But now as an adult, I do understand some of the rationale for that first-year hazing. It was designed to tear us away from the easy, the comfortable, and the familiar. It was intended to refocus our perspective and reset our priorities. For all of us, it would no longer be about “me” but about “us.” That first year began to make real what, until then, had been theoretical constructs—like duty, honor, and “service before self.” These words could no longer be thought of as abstractions. Instead they now had real meaning in real life, as in “in-your-face” reality. It’s amazing how clearly and how quickly one learns about diligence, responsibility, and accountability when the only allowable, acceptable responses to any query by a superior are “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” “No excuse, sir,” or “Sir, I do not know.”
The rule was that the upperclassmen weren’t supposed to get physical with us. But there was some jostling along with the yelling and the intimidation.
Those who argue in favor of hazing say that it builds a sense of loyalty among comrades, and there’s some truth to that. As that freshman year wore on, I felt very close to many of my fellow “doolies” (it’s a derivation of the Greek word
My doolie year left me bonded for life with some of my fellow freshmen. It was an intense experience; it wasn’t like just going off to college. We were being tested, abused, physically challenged. And we had to watch a number of those in our ranks fall away. Some wouldn’t make it through the mental and physical challenges of basic training. Some would fail academically, or feel too intimidated by the hazing. Others would transfer to regular universities after deciding, “This is not for me. I want a good education, but not at this cost.” Those of us who endured and remained became a brotherhood.
That first summer we were sequestered at basic training, and it was the most grueling physical experience of my life. We’d have to go out on formation runs, our rifles held high above our heads, our boots slapping the ground at the same instant, and it was a real sign of weakness or failure to drop out of formation. The upperclassmen would yell: “Keep that rifle high! Don’t be a pussy. You’re letting your classmates down!”
The guys who had the most trouble were those who couldn’t run well enough. They’d get used up and have to stop. And once a cadet dropped out of formation, the upperclassmen would circle him and yell at him. It was very intense. Some men would throw up from the exertion. On rare occasions, someone would cry. Some of my classmates had fathers who were military officers; they feared they’d be disowned if they had to drop out of the academy. I felt for them. I would later wonder where they would end up, at a civilian university perhaps— someplace where you could get a good education without going through all of this.
I had grown up at sea level, and here we were, at an elevation of almost seven thousand feet. It was hard for all of us until we acclimated to the altitude. I was usually somewhere in the middle of the pack, but I held my own. I was determined to make it through the summer, and through the four years to follow.
Though I was homesick and exhausted, I did enjoy some aspects of that summer. They would break us into teams and give us physical problem-solving tests to evaluate us. We were handed a bunch of ropes and boards and, as a team, had to come up with a way to get from one side of a large enclosed cubicle to the other without touching the ground or the water below, and in a limited amount of time. The upperclassmen and officers stood there with clipboards and stopwatches, observing who had the leadership skills to get his team safely across. When it was my turn to be the leader of this exercise, I did pretty well, and that gave me confidence.
I know that summer of training helped me later. It made me realize that if I dug deep enough, I could find strength I didn’t know I had. If I hadn’t been forced to push myself that summer, I would never have known the full extent of what inner resources I had to draw upon. It wasn’t as if I was lazy as a boy. I wasn’t. But until that summer, I had never pushed myself to the limit. Those of us who made it through realized that we had achieved more than we thought we could.
