My Christian Testimony

I always believed there was a God, even as a boy. But I never thought I could have a personal relationship with him or that he would guide me in life choices. I lived to serve myself, and the first question I asked in any situation was, “What’s in it for me?” While life gave me many opportunities, God was someone I would selfishly approach and pray to him as if he were Santa Claus.

My father was a cadet at West Point but did not finish. It was an incomplete part of his life in which he struggled to find closure. I sought to go there myself in many ways to gain his approval and his esteem. He helped me, but I didn’t get in right out of high school. My grades were mediocre, and I had to go to the West Point prep school for a year to improve my SAT scores. In April 1976, I was granted admission to West Point. It was a bonding moment for my father and me. Two weeks before my entry at the academy that summer, my father had a heart attack and died.

Needless to say, this was a severe blow to me. But there was no turning back, and I needed to go onto the academy with this cloud hanging over me. I made it through the Beast Barracks that summer without much problem. However, when the school year started, I was overwhelmed by the combined pressure of classes and the relentless hazing of upperclassmen. I was breaking down emotionally and began to wonder whether I would make it. I needed solitude to think, and solitude is something you rarely find at West Point as a Plebe.