Photo By Eric Bartelt | The Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic (SCPME) hosted the 17th annual...... read more read more
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To reflect on something is to give deep thought to experiences that may have left a profound effect on you. For the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy Class of 2023, they faced numerous obstacles during their tenure at West Point and before their arrivals to USMA, which they were forced to overcome – whether it was personal, academic or physical – while building a character base as future military leaders.
The Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic (SCPME) is responsible for the planning, administration and execution of the MX400: Officership course, which is the capstone class that integrates cadets’ experiences, training and classes into an interdisciplinary study of officership and the transition from being a cadet to being a commissioned officer in the profession of arms.
Each year, one of the major requirements within the MX400 course is the Gen. John J. Pershing Reflective Essay. Each cadet, more than 970 this year, was graded on an essay requirement for the course, a signature writing event, and is a candidate for the Pershing Writing Award.
SCPME hosted the 17th annual Pershing Writing Award Ceremony May 24 at the Thayer Award Room. The award recognition ceremony acknowledged this year’s top three and honorable mention Firstie cadet writing awardees for their excellence in producing the highest quality essays. The Pershing Awards were presented by the Dean of the Academic Board Brig. Gen. Shane Reeves, Commandant of Cadets Brig. Gen. Mark Quander and SCPME Director Col. James Yastrzemsky.
The top three who received certificates and Pershing medallions were Mercedez Fernandez (first place/gold medal), Jacob Lapin (second place/silver medal) and Cora Haefner (third place/bronze medal). The honorable mention recipients who received certificates were Kelsie Edie, Anthony Marco III and Shinkwang Moon.
The process of choosing the six awardees began as 14 MX400 instructors evaluated and nominated two essays each from their sections over two semesters to get a result of approximately 30 finalist essays of among the more than 970 essays this academic year, and a selection committee reviews those submissions to identify the top three and honorable mentions from the total number submitted.
“The selection process was a double-blind process, where three groups of two officers read and rated a total of approximately 10 essays each,” said Maj. Benjamin Elliot, currently the SCPME executive officer but was the MX400 course director during the 2022-23 academic year. “Then based on a rating system, the final six essays were analyzed by the same three groups of two officers. These were tabulated and rank ordered to produce a set of the top three, which the course director and assistant course director both reviewed without collaboration. Finally, the top three were selected.”
A total of six committee members, which included a mix of veteran and junior rotation instructors as well as the Special Assistant to the Commandant for Honor, were a part of the panel that decided on the top choices.
The Pershing Reflective Essay was not to exceed 2,000 words as cadets were assigned the paper in the syllabus at the beginning of the semester.
“The Firsties use this paper as an opportunity to enhance their understanding of the profession, the challenges that exist following their commissioning, and how they grow to become the officers that our nation needs,” Elliott said.
As Elliott explained, the genesis of the Pershing Award was established in 2006 by retired Lt. Gen. John Cushman, USMA Class of 1944.
“Lt. Gen. Cushman was the model of a reflective leader, lifelong learner and steward of the profession,” Elliott said. “He endowed the Pershing Award with the desire that each cadet reflect on his or her experience at West Point to gain a better understanding for how the institution has helped prepare them to serve the nation honorably as a commissioned officer.”
Cushman commanded the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) during a deployment to Vietnam in 1967, and that brigade is featured in the MX400 Black Hearts case study. The case study highlights the incredible challenges of the combat environment and the critical importance of strong moral leadership at all levels.
Pershing, who had an outstanding career that included commanding the entire Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I, was chosen as the namesake of the award due to a reflection letter he penned in January 1919, 32 years after he graduated from USMA in 1886.
“What the academy stands for has always been my guide throughout my military career, and to have approached the high ideals of duty, honor and service to country that are the real spirit of West Point has to me a meaning that nothing else has,” he wrote. “The longer I live, the further I have gone in the service, the more I reverence the things that inspire the heart and soul of (the cadets) at West Point.”
As Elliott explained, as cadets’ author this essay, they envision the challenges they will face as commissioned officers, assess their readiness to face those challenges, reflect on how they have grown through their West Point experiences, and reflect on how to further strengthen themselves to live honorably, lead honorably and demonstrate excellence.
“Award winners are authentic in both their content and reflection,” Elliott said. “Award-winning authors go outside their comfort zone and discuss truly difficult challenges they have faced. The essay is inspirational and impactful.”
During the ceremony, Quander spoke about the Class of 2023’s motto of, “Freedom is Not Free,” and for the class members to think about the world that they are about to go into and how West Point has paved their path to be ready as commissioned officers through the reflection of MX400.
“What I want you to think about is your experience at West Point has made you stronger, more resilient and better leaders as a result of your time here,” Quander said. “Each of you will take that strength and resiliency along with you and the experiences you’ve gained and lessons you’ve learned here as you’ll be the Army’s most important weapon system – our people. Remember, everything we do is centered around people.
“But before you can lead America’s sons and daughters, you have to know yourself and hopefully over MX400 you have had an opportunity to explore deeply what it means to lead America’s sons and daughters in the crucible of ground combat,” he added. “In the past year, you’ve had a chance to reflect on that, develop your own leadership style and I couldn’t be more proud of you. When you look at MX400 … you look at the experiences of others, their trials and tribulations, whether it is officership gone right or officership gone wrong, then you take your own personal internal examination of your own leadership style and personal trials and tribulations to prepare yourself for (graduation and commissioning) Saturday. Welcome to the profession of arms.”
Reeves expressed how intense the competition was to receive the top prizes for the superintendent’s integrated experience in MX400. He spoke highly of the winners’ academic and writing excellence and how it is a critical skill for officers to be effective communicators.
“Human creativity and critical thinking … writing is essential to our profession,” Reeves said. “It fosters the creativity and innovation necessary to be the officers we need. While military writing is often associated with structure and discipline, writing is also a place for new and unconventional ideas and thinking.
“Through writing, we have the opportunity to explore new concepts, propose new strategies and challenge established norms,” he added. “Whether it’s developing a new warfighting strategy or reflecting on our professional experiences, writing provides us a platform to think outside the box and push those boundaries, if necessary, where possible.”
Reeves praised the awardees for their ability to delve deeper into problems, conduct research and produce different perspectives. With all those things, they can be good writers.
“Writing is a very difficult process, but through writing you develop into better thinkers who have analytical skills that enable you to solve problems and adapt, and what may be most important is to do that in a rapidly changing situation that you will find yourself in,” Reeves said. “So, I can’t think of a better way to finish your West Point experience than earning the Pershing Reflective Essay award, it’s a really incredible ending to your cadet career.”
Reeves reiterated how MX400 is an integrated experience that ties together everything the cadets have learned across all the programs, whether it is the academic, military or physical pillars, but with the focus on the foundation of character that Dr. Jeffrey Peterson, the senior advisor in Character Integration and Advisory Group, lays out for them.
“The Pershing Essay is the only event that allows you to reflect and think creatively and critically about your 47-month experience,” Reeves said. “As (Superintendent) Lt. Gen. (Steven) Gilland often says, ‘you’re not ending something, you’re actually just starting – you’re getting ready for your career in the profession of arms.’ Overall, I could not be more pleased with the thoughtful and inciteful essays that you produced, along with all your classmates.”
Top awardees’ perspective on earning the Pershing Writing Award
Class of 2023 Cadet Cora Haefner, an English major from Herndon, Virginia, learned about receiving the Pershing Essay Award bronze medal while watching a teammate lift at the Powerlifting Nationals in Texas. She was congratulated by her fellow Firsties as if the award were “something unachievable, something only a great writer would receive.”
“I prided myself on that accomplishment and then, about a week later, I received feedback on another assignment in which the anonymous grader called me a weak writer,” Haefner said. “That said, receiving recognition for being great did not, and does not, make me great. I am honored, however, to receive recognition for writing in my unique voice because I pride myself in not changing who I am and how I write.”
Haefner discussed that her essay topic centered around an increasingly relevant term discussed in MX400 – Mission Command.
“Mission Command is necessary, I argued, because the decentralization in warfare in recent years has called for a decentralization in leadership,” said Haefner, who is branching Armor. “I have become a leader by first embracing the subordinate role, thus preparing me to understand my own subordinates and empower their leadership. Decentralized leadership nonetheless requires an ultimate decision maker, a role which I will strive to embody.”
Haefner said she learned the whole subordinate to leadership role from moving up through the ranks on the Army West Point powerlifting team and then learning to function as a platoon leader during Cadet Troop Leader Training (CTLT).
For the Firsties who write their essays, there is a value that comes from taking time to reflect on the past and how it has influenced them to become the leader they want to be.
“The first important step in reflective writing is reflection itself,” Haefner said. “I’ve often reflected directly after a leadership failure or success; in doing so, I have also viewed each of these experiences as standalone events. This essay instead encouraged me to reflect on my experiences as events that have worked together to form the leader I am today.”
For Haefner, the combination of the essay, the MX400: Officership course and her overall experience at West Point has taught her extensively about herself. She said one of the worst feelings she has had is the feeling of being incompetent and, with that, being associated with failure.
“One of the best lessons I have learned at West Point, and MX400 as its culmination, is to be comfortable being uncomfortable and to do something about that,” Haefner said. “To do something about failure is to get back up again, reassess the situation and try again a different way. Failure is only final when you decide to quit. Junior officers are new, often incompetent, and fail all the time. But they keep trying, and that is what I plan to do.”
As for receiving third overall with an award associated with one of West Point’s greatest graduates, Haefner said that “Success feels good.”
“But it is also good to remind myself that part of this paper was a successful reflection on my failure,” she added. “In the future, this is a paper that may serve me well, much like a journal entry, as I get back up again and strive toward success.”
Class of 2023 Cadet Mercedez Fernandez, a Portuguese major from Gilbert, Arizona, and Cody, Wyoming, learned she took the top prize from a congratulatory text from her Company G-2 tactical noncommissioned officer while on a trip section at the Officer Women Leadership Symposium.
“I was listening to the panel when the text populated on my Apple watch, and I just about jumped out of my chair,” Fernandez said. “The feeling was surreal, for sure. I must admit, although I worked hard on the paper, it’s hard to imagine that it was the best out of all the submissions. Nonetheless, discovering I won the award was undoubtedly a moment of pride and accomplishment.
“I soon realized, however, that the true award was the significance of the recognition,” she added. “The knowledge that my paper resonated with others, and they viewed me as someone on the right track for commissioning is far more meaningful than a medallion. I am truly humbled.”
Fernandez introduced her essay as, “To Be Leather,” with personal anecdotes from Basic Combat Training at Fort Leonard Wood and Cadet Basic Training/Beast at West Point.
“I explained how training mantras like, ‘The Definition of Leather,’ can bear deeper significance such as how the leather-making process symbolizes the Leader Growth Model,” Fernandez said. “I wrote, ‘At the academy, we are immersed in a ‘dilute solution’ of challenging experiences as well as new knowledge and capacities. With reflection, over four years, we become leather – ‘better, more self-aware leaders.’”
Fernandez then evaluated her current readiness to commission by first describing the contemporary challenges of Army officership, which is the preservation of professional identity and adaptation to the modern battlefield. She said she cited a 2018 RAND study to compare the motivations behind enlistment in the aftermath of 9/11, when patriotic sentiment was high, versus the post-Global War on Terrorism environment.
“I elaborated that there is a generational value gap and millennials’ values do not tend to align with the Army’s, leading to a corrosion of professional identity,” Fernandez said. “I also talked about the challenges that come with large-scale changes to the operational environment, considering the Army’s recent emphasis on Multi-Domain Operations to achieve the new National Defense Strategy – ‘To deter and defeat Chinese and Russian aggression in both competition and conflict.’”
Fernandez then wrote about her two personal strengths and personal weaknesses. She said her two strengths are empathy and intellect, which empower her to overcome her challenges.
“I underscore empathy as my greatest strength and support it with personal examples of my childhood as well as leadership experiences at West Point,” said Fernandez, who is branching Field Artillery. “I transitioned into how this skill will enable me to illicit loyalty and nurture a new generation of leaders. I also addressed intellect as a strength, describing my interdisciplinary approach toward life. I wrote about how I’ve pushed myself academically … and then I wrote about how this aptitude bleeds into military expertise, citing my (Officer Evaluation Report) from CTLT.”
She then delved into her personal weaknesses, which Fernandez said are resilience and discipline. She began by writing about how she erroneously pinned resilience as a strength in the past. Fernandez discussed how she “hunted the good stuff,” but neglected to truly process several events from her past.
Fernandez brought up two vignettes of her Breast Cancer Gene 1 (BRCA1) diagnosis and the nightmares she experienced working in a Critical Care Unit.
“I had not been screened for breast cancer despite testing positive for BRCA1. And I had not sought counseling for events that transpired during my childhood, which led to trauma resurfacing in the form of nightmares after listening to new cadets (tell their stories as a Beast counselor),” Fernandez said. “I avoided true reflection instead of truly coping with my experiences. Next, I identified discipline as my second weakness, which was pretty straightforward as I used my Air Assault Day 0 drop as a prime example.”
She lastly provided a detailed action plan to deliberately strengthen those attributes and enhance her overall fitness for the profession.
“I wrote, ‘My strategy is simple – ‘Say what I mean, do what I say,’” Fernandez said. “My plan included SMART goals revolving around mental and physical fitness, such as Military and Family Life Counseling, nutritionist appointments and fitness plans. I concluded with, ‘I am not leather yet, but I will be.’”
Fernandez said the value of writing her essay was that it allowed her to step out of her comfort zone and pondered on her leadership development.
“This paper required not only comprehension of the modern battlefield and its consequential challenges but also vulnerability,” Fernandez said. “My writing process revolved around looking in the mirror and being brutally honest with myself and the reader. This essay prompted crucial self-reflection.
“And because I sorted out objectives to become a better officer, I feel much more in tune with my emotions and I am now in the shape I need to be in to walk on to Air Assault this summer as a second lieutenant,” she added. “In the end, I’ve gained much more than recognition from this paper. I gained a great awareness of myself – my strengths and weaknesses – and how I need to adapt to be the best person/officer I can be.”
As for how MX400, the essay and her West Point experience helped prepare her for her next mission as an officer, Fernandez said it is all about reflection and working on bettering yourself.
“MX400 delineates the theories behind officership and effective leadership, but my overall West Point experience has enabled me to see it all in practice,” Fernandez said. “Throughout my experiences here, I’ve had a lot of success and a lot of failure. Luckily, this place sets us up to reflect and work on ourselves to realize our full potential.
“West Point has all the tools – be it the MX400 lesson list or, more broadly, in the West Point Leader Development System, it all comes down to whether we decide to put those tools to use,” she added. “I’m glad I took the paper seriously. I think it was pivotal in deciding the kind of person I want to be when those gold bars are pinned on my uniform.”
As to winning an award named after Pershing, Fernandez said she is a little overwhelmed and there’s a lot to live up to being associated with him.
“I may never project his strict demeanor and he may have had more strategic brilliance in his pinky toe than I do in my entire body, but I promise to dedicate myself to my Soldiers just as he did,” Fernandez said. “I view this award as a responsibility to honor his legacy by inspiring and leading others in a manner that reflects the highest standards of military leadership. The plan of action in my paper was certainly not all-inclusive. This recognition has only made me more aware of the fact I have endless self-reflection and self-work to do.”
| Date Taken: | 05.31.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.31.2023 15:27 |
| Story ID: | 445893 |
| Location: | WEST POINT, NY, US |
| Web Views: | 100 |
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