By Erika Norton, WPAOG Senior Multimedia Journalist
The West Point Association of Graduates proudly hosted two of the Long Gray Line’s Distinguished Graduates on Thursday, February 26 for a jam-packed day of cadet engagement.
Distinguished Graduate Award (DGA) recipients Mrs. Marene Allison ’80 and GEN (R) Dan Allyn ’81 visited their Rockbound Highland Home as part of an ongoing effort to link distinguished graduates with the Corps. Allison and Allyn spent their morning interacting with cadets around post and seeing some of the amazing innovations and new technologies in the Electrical Engineering & Computer Science department (EECS) and Simon Center for the Professional-Military Ethic (SCPME).
From the Poop Deck at the Mess Hall during lunch, cadet leadership announced Allison and Allyn to the Corps, where they received cheers of respect and admiration from the cadets below. They also participated in an MX400 class, the Superintendent’s capstone course that empowers cadets to understand and embrace their ongoing development as leaders of character and their emerging identities as Army officers who apply critical thinking in complex situations and interdisciplinary solutions to complex military problems.
The main event was a dinner and intimate fireside chat amongst cadet leadership. BG R.J. Garcia ’96, 81st Commandant, U.S. Corps of Cadets, and COL (R) Mark Bieger ’91, WPAOG President and CEO, led the discussion and a Q&A session with Allison and Allyn. Topics included their times as cadets, their military careers, and how they took what they learned from both West Point and the Army and applied those lessons in their lives post-military.
Allison described the character attributes that you gather throughout a West Point graduates’ life as “a quiver of arrows.”
“So you have your quiver on your back and you start putting arrows in it—I learned this when I was Head of Security at Avaya Telecommunications, and I learned this as a Second Lieutenant, and I learned this one at West Point,” Allsion said. “And you have this quiver of arrows that are sitting there and there are times in your life where you’ll choose, ‘I can just retire,’ or ‘I can just go do something else,’ or ‘I can do the line from the Cadet Prayer, ‘I am going to do the harder right instead of the easier wrong.’ And if there’s any line that has helped define my character over the course of my lifetime, it’s that one.”
Cadets throughout the room took notes during the discussion, and a few posed questions, allowing them to dig further into the wisdom that Allison and Allyn shared. Allyn had some advice for the cows and firsties.
“If there’s a relationship that you’ve been meaning to get after with a classmate, whether it’s in your company or broader across, get it done before you leave here,” Allyn said, “because when you get in this ‘big green machine’ called the United States Army, it gets really quick. So make the most of the days that you have left here.”
Allyn told firsties to take full advantage of the leadership development opportunities that the Corps of Cadets will provide to not only enrich their experience and their responsibility as a leader, but to prepare for future experiences while in the Army.
“Don’t experience the first time as a second lieutenant—something that you could have prepared for here as a cadet,” Allyn told the firsties, “because once you’re in the job and you’re the second lieutenant, you own it.
Garcia hopes that the DGAs left a remarkable impression on the cadets.
“I hope they take away the timeless leadership lessons and the timeless lessons on how to continue to build character beyond their time here at West Point,” Garcia said. ”These distinguished graduates—and all of our graduates—demonstrate that every day. So this opportunity to hear from very successful graduates who have led in very complex situations is a priceless moment to connect with them and learn those lessons.”
