USAFA's First Class Mentors The Newest

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES

06.27.2013

Video by Kevin Conroy, Thomas Paul, Kevin Tappan and Jon Zanone

U.S. Air Force Academy

The class of 2017 entered the air force academy recently. It's the fifty ninth class to begin basic cadet training at the newest of the service academies. Jon Zanone brings us the story of how members of that first class of nineteen fifty-nine are paying it forward.
When Curtis cook came to the academy in 1954, it was a very different place. You can forgive that he doesn't remember much of that first day. Not because of age, but circumstance.
Lt. Col. (ret) Curtis Cook: we had to march in the dedication parade the day we arrived. So we signed in and then immediately began an exhausting hours of learning to march. Most of us didn't have the foggiest idea of what marching was all about. So the first day was a blur. All I can remember is putting one foot in front of the other, and wondering when it would end.
It did end, and cook graduated in nineteen fifty nine - the first class of many to navigate the rigors of the academy. To commemorate their journey, the class of fifty-nine built the challenge bridge to give one final lesson to incoming basic cadets about their path through the academy and beyond.

Cook: the way I see our role as we welcome these new cadets is that we're validating what they're about to do. It was important to us, and it will be important to them. But they are at the very beginning, and we want them to know that we're on their side, we think this is a good thing they do, and we wish them the best of luck.
Each graduate tells a different story. For cook, he relates the story of the academy's first superintendent, lieutenant general Hubert Harmon.
Cook: and this year I tell them a little story about some difficulties that he encountered in hopes that they recognize when they encounter difficulties they not the first ones that ever happened to.
After a career as a navigator and an academy political science instructor, cook offers some seasoned advice to the new basics.
Cook: cadets said to each other when they came in was 'don't volunteer for anything'. That's the worst advice I ever heard. And it took me a long time to figure out that the opposite is the way to approach the academy and a lot of other things. Volunteer for everything. You just never know what spectacular experiences might come out of raising your hand.
Jon Zanone, the united states air force academy. Available in High Definition.

• Date Taken: 06.27.2013
• Date Posted: 06.28.2013 19:50
• Category: Package
• Video ID: 295055
• VIRIN: 130627-F-PO690-002
• Filename: DOD_100850079
• Length: 00:02:30
• Location: COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, US