Induction Day at US Naval Academy – June 25, 2026
Graduation Gift
For those wanting to give a graduation gift before August 10, 2026 (Parent Plebe Weekend at USNA), please use the links below or leave a comment/send us an email & we will send you a US address for gifts.
Short videos of Induction Day
– Linda
(after Induction Day & on my 50th – June 26, 2026)
Induction Day for the US Naval Academy was June 25, 2026 this year for class of 2030. For those who don’t know, I-Day begins a a 7-week period that slams glaring reality into your face, literally with slammed doors at the end of the day: your child is emancipated to the US Navy and no longer belongs to you. Those permitted to report come with nothing but their paperwork, clothes on their back, and cell phones – only to have everything stripped away, even down to their underwear, and re-outfitted to be a new plebe (1st year at the US Naval Academy), with phones confiscated. Our oldest will have no contact with anyone in the outside world for 6 weeks as of June 25, 2026. He is allowed only letters and 2 scheduled phone calls for 30 minutes.
It’s necessary to build cohesion, but more importantly, to learn a key leadership skill: how do you overcome failure? The 7 week program, famously called Plebe Summer, is designed to find your weakness with impossible schedules (5:15am wake up for physical training all summer), impossible tasks (mechanical eating style where the midshipman look straight ahead and eat only with strict right angles), and impossible goals (he will be given more tasks—such as folding laundry, reciting memorized knowledge, cleaning his room flawlessly, preparing for formation – than physically possible in the allotted time). The concept is forced overload along with lots of yelling to increase the pressure. The key element USNA seems to be after: how you handle failure under pressure and prioritize tasks, rather than executing every task flawlessly.
We dropped our oldest off at 6:45am on Induction Day and didn’t see him again until 6:20pm for a total of 35 minutes. During the day, all I heard from the parent presentations were the following:
Your child is in good hands. High standards and a passion for winning are not apologized for, but we will have fun along wth way. Positive pressure with a purpose. Most challenging and restricting experience of their young lives, but also one of the most rewarding. Your child is turning into a warfighter who can be 100% relied on in extreme pressure situations because he or she has been prepared properly.
To sum it up, the US Naval Academy is N*ot College, it’s a Crucible.
As a mother, I feel like our last 5 years in France has been a sprint to this moment. We had no idea our oldest would choose this path, but we believe God did. I also see that God designed my last 5 years to pour into my marriage and family and not spend so much time blogging. As is the reality in all our lives, we can spend more time posting content on social media – reading other people’s content – than living in the moment and being present with our loved ones.
This summer, this blog will be a chronicle of the past 5 years looking backward, punctuated with our new merged lives as a family of 4 with 1 in a 9 year military commitment (4 years of US Naval Academy and 5 years of active duty). I have many goals for my extra time that are personally enriching, and one of them will be cataloging memories to share on this public space.
I am celebrating my 50th today in a way I never imagined! These big birthdays are so important because we reflect backwards on the sum of our experiences and ask God for the rhyme and reason of each moment, and more importantly, ask Him to show us what is His will going forward.
If I learned one thing from our time in France, it’s submitting to God’s will is incredibly hard on the granular level. We prefer our will, and we wake up every day with that hidden posture in our hearts. Finding time to submit our day to His will before we begin tasks, assessing if we are on the right track all through the day, and giving Him dominion and honor over all the things that did happen at the end of the day is very hard.
My will has been thwarted all along the way in France with simple examples in the last few months. In the US, we end our senior year of high school with lots of celebrations and a lighter work load. In France, it’s the most intense time of high school! I confronted basic realities of our oldest missing his high school graduation and having to drum up our own version or our oldest only have 5 days of summer due to the French senior exam schedule and then choosing to jump into 6 weeks of misery at Plebe summer. I imagined other things for his senior year when he was a child, yet here we were.
At 50, I see some of the best of me squeezed out into my children with my oldest leaving in a showy fashion, but I also see God pivoting me to a beautiful new season of self-confidence as a mother and woman. I am still learning and growing alongside my children, and we are at the point where their wisdom will sometimes supersede mine.
2 things stick out from yesterday:
1. Our youngest told me he finally understands what our oldest felt like having his autistic brother to himself for 7 years before our youngest could really be a playmate to our oldest. It’s a challenge to have a special needs child in the family. Yes, our middle son is a huge gift, but there is often a cost that siblings must absorb, whether or not they were asked. With two highly social siblings bookending our middle child, I see why friend networks are so important to both of them to fill that gap. I see how delicate this balancing act of them accepting their autistic brother, yet needing to expand beyond our family for deep social needs. I have always desired a close-knit, self-sufficient family due to my own tragic family background, but I see our kids have concentric worlds that need extra tender care, and God has given me gifts to help them maintain it.
- Additionally, in France, we are a minority amongst our kids’ friends in terms of our evangelical Christian beliefs and even some family values. Your child is the average of the four people they spend the most time with. We have decided as parents, we are have to be one of those 4 people they spent the most time with in France. In Mississippi, we had more adult mentors to fill that role – coaches, teachers, youth pastors, camp leaders. But as missionaries, we believe we need to step into that role in more intentionality to have the consistency our kids need. Our oldest, and his friends, would attest to our very involved role in his life for his high school years in France – and we are seeing the fruit of many of those moments, whether they were difficult arguments or sweet understanding.
2. Our oldest told me, when we saw him at the end of the day, that his room felt like a bomb went off with all the new items he was given and having to organize. I laughed because, as a mother, I know organizational skills for his personal space are a huge challenge to him. In plain speak, he can be a slob. He said the only thing that felt familiar and reminded him of home was the big Bible we argued about bringing because he was worried they would take that away from him. It ended up being the only thing – along with his journal – he was allowed to keep. We visited with the leaders of a Christian ministry, OCF or Officers’ Christian Fellowship, with a house right outside Gate 3 the day before. We hope our oldest will find a new home within USNA at OCF. For us, we never want military life or ranked performance to become an idol. Our oldest’s worth is greater than that, bought at a deepest price imaginable, and that is our guiding light in this new world of the US Navy.
Follow along this summer and catch up with us over our last five years, starting with the celebratory moment of our oldest’s Induction Day. We will see him again at the end of the 6 weeks in August 2026 – and I am hoping for the best hug in the world! At 50, so many upcoming milestone moments will have a deep sweetness that I didn’t have the perspective to appreciate before. I am excited for what God has ahead!
Senior Portrait – Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
Short videos before Induction Day
New Blog Post: US Naval Academy
Oct 2025: Candidate Visit Weekend
– John Hugh
(before Induction Day)
Our first son is set to graduate high school here in France. Graduation is usually early July in France, so we are a few months behind the US high school celebrations.
It’s been five years of his education and formation at a French high school. He’s become a young man. Now he has accepted an appointment at the United States Naval Academy. We are extremely proud. More so, I’m excited for him: the opportunities he will have and the training he will receive. It’s been a process, both in terms of his decision to apply to military academies and his overall development. He made the effort to apply to the US Naval Academy, US Military Academy (West Point) along with ROTC and NROTC scholarships in regular US universities. We were even more proud he received these scholarships and appointments, yet ultimately, he chose the US Naval Academy.
Why Navy for him? In brief, he’s always loved the water, competing both in the USA and French swimming; he made a national swim championship his first year n France. Although his interests drifted from baseball, American football, and swim to rugby and water polo in France, he still loves the multi-tiered opportunities for sea, land, and air that the US Navy presents.
A key moment was attending the USNA’s Summer Seminar for rising seniors and returning back to France saying he had found “his people. He visited both Annapolis and West Point in October 2025 as a prospective candidate. While he loved and was interested in both, he felt Navy was a better fit.
To arrive at the point of wanting to apply was its own journey: the weighty decision of serving your country and the grueling regime ahead of him in a service academy. We believe our time in France made our oldest more open and apt to give it a shot. We often think now, if we had stayed in the USA five years ago, would he have even applied? While we will never know, we definitely think being here has led him more deeply to consider how can he serve others.
Even though he’s always enjoyed teams, competition, and challenging himself, living in France has produced for Jack, and all of us, a more national, patriotic spirit in being Americans here. I have written about, thought about, and read much more of the historic Franco-American ties and alliance.
France was America’s first ally, and the bond was forged in both the Great War and World War II. Jack had three great, great, great uncles who fought in the fields of France in World War 1. All returned back to Mississippi deeply scarred. Two of them never recovered from those scars. The third lived into his 90’s, yet some of his final words were, “charge, charge!” Then Jack’s great, great uncle arrived in Normandy on June 7th, following Patton across Europe, liberating the first concentration camp, and celebrating with Allied forces on May 8th, still a national holiday in France as Liberation Day.
Throughout Jack’s own life, we have tried to always provide a sense of this shared sacrifice. Around Jackson, Mississippi, we would always attend Memorial Day ceremonies. He grew up going to them and taking a moment away from tubing or barbecues to remember the sacrifices of those who fought for our freedoms. In France, we’ve attended the Armistice Day ceremonies (Veterans Day in USA). He’s had an opportunity to go to a school founded by then General Dwight Eisenhower after World War II. This school was started initially for NATO families and to grow the shared post-war trans-Atlantic values. He’s been able to represent the school at Memorial Day activities here.
In essence, he’s had the opportunity to think more deeply about who he is, where he’s from. This contrast of his experience of living in the US and being an American in France, we believe, has served him well. He could’ve gone in many different directions: moving here at 14, not knowing French, being thrown into a very competitive French high school, finding new friends, new sports, new rhythms. He’s been challenged more than he likely envisioned. Our kids didn’t ask for this move nor did they debate it. We came as a family, knowing it would alter the course of our lives and our trajectory as a family.
So while we have grieved the things we missed out on for them in the USA – particularly the Friday Night Lights, Ole Miss football games, baseball, playing catch in our backyard, those North Jackson fields, and all the camaraderie and friendships and team building these things bring – we have tried to embrace all being here offered as well. New experiences, new sports, different perspectives, and being surrounded by the history and global culture at his school.
America will always be our home – even more now as we have son who will serve his country in a unique way. Yet we have made a home in France too, planning to stay and contribute where we can at least until our youngest graduates high school. Hopefully we can also emulate the shared alliance and help others to see the good that comes through national service.
In our family, Jack’s two younger brothers look up to him immensely. One with special needs has changed Jack tremendously. The other is already challenging him as a sharp strategist and debater. Will our youngest eventually serve as his oldest brother is? We don’t know yet. We do know he’ll be present a lot at US Naval Academy events, and he will admire all his older brother is doing from afar.
We offer gratitude for all those who made good deposits in Jack’s life – the teachers, coaches, pastors, friends, and family. No one man or woman is an island and there are many who speak into and shape an individual’s life. If you are reading this and are one of them, you know who you are. Thank you. We will convey our appreciation in person.
For Jack, this season is coming to a close. And like all parents of graduates this time of year, emotions are high in a positive way and memories are flooding. It’s also coincides with our 5 year mark in France, so we will be posting many memories and highlights in this rollercoaster ride as missionaries. We haven’t always had time to post, but we hope to share snippets from the last 5 years that show you what God is up to in our lives, the lives around us, and in France.
A new season beckons for our oldest- one that will test him and us in new and unexpected ways. We are confident in the new friends, mentors, and leaders who will forge and shape Jack at the US Naval Academy and afterwards in the US Navy for his 5 years of active duty. God has both made a way and grown our oldest in his time here. We believe He will further equip him to be a man that understands, collaborates, and makes his own personal mark to both our nation and the world. We will always be here for him wherever the winds and high seas take him. Go Navy!
Paris Partner Goal
We have intentions to stay in France for another 5 years. God has been gracious to open so many doors.
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CONGRATULATIONS 🎉👏!! WOW!! Go Jack!!
Thank you so much Susan!! You still keep up with us faithfully – so you need to come visit soon!