The year was 1992, and I was a senior in high school. Like most people my age, the reality of the end of high school was setting in, combined with the reality that I needed something to do after high school. I had been preparing for the last six months for auditions at music schools. In just a few short months, I would travel the state to various universities to visit music education programs and perform the repertoire I had been practicing.
One day, while at school, I don’t remember when exactly, I wandered through the cafeteria. I seldom went. In three years at the high school (ours was a 10-12 building; I was not a prodigy or anything), I had been there once or twice, and I certainly never ate there. All I can figure is that my chorus teacher had sent me on an errand that took me through the cafeteria. Regardless, I was there, and as I passed through, I was stopped by a Navy recruiter. I had never considered the military as an option. I had uncles who served, but that was it. I certainly never entertained it until that day.
I don’t know if it was the uncertainty of my music auditions (either because I didn’t know or because I hadn’t practiced) or the promise of free college and the opportunity to travel and play my trumpet. Still, I gave the recruiter more than a few minutes. I began seriously investigating a career in the military. The recruiter came to my house (much to the surprise of my mother). I took the ASFAB, got the physical, and met with the recruiter again. The whole process took several months.
As I was moving through the military recruitment process, I also attended music school auditions. I had no acceptance letters but spent time on college campuses and engaging with the academic lifestyle.
Then the day came. It was early spring, and I still had no acceptance letters, but the military recruiter was sitting at the dining room table. My ASFAB scores had come back. I was in the top 10%, and he tried to convince me to take the Nuke School path instead of the Navy Band path. He presented a case that included lucrative careers after service based on my work on nuclear submarines in the service.
Maybe it was the possibility of spending the next six years in a metal can underwater for months, or perhaps I desired to pursue singing and not trumpet. It could have even been the pull of becoming a teacher to influence the lives of future music students like me. No matter the why, in a moment, my perspective changed, and I found a clarity I had not yet experienced. Despite having no college offers, I knew I wanted to go to college and did not want to pursue a military career. After a challenging conversation with a less-than-happy recruiter, I did not sign on the dotted line.
I did not join the Navy that day. I waited for results from auditions and would eventually start at SUNY Potsdam in the Fall of 1993. As I look back, my career path could have been very different. I decided in that instant that education was what I wanted to do. It would be many years until I fully understood that the piece of the Navy experience resonated: the chance to perform. It is a piece of my identity I have relegated to the back burner of my life so many times in the past 30 years. I had been told for years that teaching was a safe career. While the Navy was a stable career, like teaching, the Navy Band aspect was performance and not nearly as guaranteed. Ultimately, that aspect probably had as much to do with my decision as the idea of being underwater for extended periods and the reality of basic training.
Life is full of these watershed decision moments. What are the moments in your life where you had to make choices like this? How can you learn from the decisions you made in the past? How can those decisions inform your future?
Be well!
Comments