“I’m not asking her. You ask her.”
“No way am I asking her! You do it.”
I was going back and forth with one of my Naval Academy classmates.
We were standing off to the side of a small gathering of midshipmen at a reception for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
She was at the Academy getting the full VIP treatment.
Dress parade. Dinner at Buchanan House, the Superintendent’s residence. Featured speaker at a Forrestal Lecture, named for the former Secretary of the Navy.
We midshipmen dreaded Forrestal Lectures. Bore-estal, as we called them.
You had to put on your dress uniform after dinner and listen to politicians talk.
Mostly politicians. There were others.
Like the U.S. Poet Laureate.
That was pure pain.
You’re sitting there at eight o’clock at night thinking, I have a paper due tomorrow. And a calculus quiz. And a lab to write up. So why the hell am I sitting here listening to some lady in dreadlocks read poems?
To become cultured, I suppose.
Or, more likely, to inflate the ego of whichever D.C. schmuck the Navy brass had decided needed inflating.
The lectures were almost as bad as the parades.
That was where you marched around in an even more uncomfortable uniform to be “reviewed” by whatever visiting dignitary was on the Yard.
I think Naval Academy midshipmen were subjected to far more of this dog-and-pony bullshit than West Point or Air Force cadets due to Annapolis’s proximity to Washington, D.C.
If you’re a politician and want to get a quick change of scenery, you make the short drive to Crab Town.
When I was a lieutenant on the Commandant’s staff, I got a phone call from then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s advance guy.
“The Secretary would like to host an offsite at the Academy, and I’m told you’re the guy who can make it happen.”
Not sure where he got that, but okay.
And doesn’t the Secretary, like, own The Pentagon? Couldn’t he find a place for a meeting there?
Two weeks later, Rumsfeld strides into the Commandant’s office, trailed by his advance guy.
“This is Lieutenant Bozung,” he told the Secretary. “He helped set this up.”
Rumsfeld, spotting the gold wings on my uniform, replied, “Of course he did. A Navy pilot!”
The Secretary had a spent a brief time as a Naval Aviator following his graduation from Princeton in the mid-Fifties.
And then he dug one of his Secretary of Defense coins out of his pocket and handed it to me.
That was pretty cool.
But back to our story.
So, we’re doing a parade for Madeleine Albright.
The entire Brigade of Midshipmen marches through the center of the campus to the parade field, where there are bleachers full of tourists and old ladies in sun hats.
I was out in front of a small group, leading my own little formation.
You get into position on the parade field and do the Manual of Arms.
The crowd loves that stuff.
The Brigade Commander yells, “Right shoul-durrrrr . . . Arms!” and four thousand midshipmen position the fifty-pound, World War II-era rifles they’re carrying on their right shoulders in unison.
Okay, maybe not fifty pounds. But that’s what it feels like.
Then, “Left shoul-durrrrr . . . Arms!”
It goes on like that for a while.
And then you Pass in Review, or march in formation past the reviewing stand and salute the visiting VIP, the Reviewing Official.
In fine Academy tradition, when the Brigade Commander yells, “Pass . . . in . . . review!” every midshipman whispers, Piss . . . in . . . your shoe!
The tourists aren’t supposed to hear it.
But, often, they do.
You see them looking at each other in the bleachers. What did they just say . . . ?
Hey, you do some stupid shit at the Academy to make the place a little less miserable, okay?
So, anyway, I’m leading my little formation to the front of the parade field and the reviewing area.
There are flags planted in the ground at various intervals to mark the places at which you’re supposed to do certain things.
I reach the flag about ten paces from where Secretary Albright, the Superintendent, and a couple of his aides are standing.
“Eyes . . . right!” I called.
You render honors to the reviewing official by turning your head forty-five degrees in his or her direction while carrying your sword at Present Arms.
Now, this is the tricky part.
While your head is cocked right, you have to steer out of the left corner of your eye.
If you don’t, you’ll swerve your formation right into the reviewing party.
And that’s bad.
So, I’m eyes-righting and steering out of the corner of my eye when I pass in front of the Secretary.
As I do, I notice she has her eyes locked right on mine.
Not in a casual way, either. She is staring me down.
And she looks serious. Very serious. Maybe even angry.
What in the hell could I possibly have done to piss off the Secretary of State? I wondered.
I maintain eye contact, not wanting to be disrespectful.
But it’s making me uncomfortable.
Frankly, it’s creeping me out.
Finally, I reach the flag on the far side of the reviewing area and yell, “Ready . . . front!”
I break eye contact with Secretary Albright, look straight ahead, and march right the hell out of there.
What was that all about?
When I got to the reception afterwards, I mentioned my bizarre stare-down with the Secretary to one of my classmates.
“No shit!” he said. “She did the same thing to me!”
So then one of us had to find why she’d done it.
But, of course, neither of us had the balls to ask.
That would have been awkward.
“Uh, excuse me, Madam Secretary . . . Um, what was up with that evil stare-down back there on the parade field? Did I do something to displease you?”
Yes, that would have been awkward.
So we get to the Forrestal Lecture, and I’m fighting to stay awake, and thinking about the thousand things I still have to do before I can go to bed.
And then Secretary Albright said something that caught my attention.
She started, “I want to thank members of the Brigade for the tremendous privilege of reviewing today’s parade.”
They all say that.
But then she continued, “And as you marched past, I tried to make eye contact with as many of you as possible. I did that, because I want you to know that I see you. And I want you to know that I appreciate you, both for the sacrifices you make today, and, more importantly, for the sacrifices you will make for our great nation when you leave this place. I wanted to say all that, if only through a moment’s eye contact.”
Huh. How about that?
I’d heard a lot of politicians speak in my time at the Academy.
But none seemed more genuine . . . more impressive . . . more caring . . .
Than our Sixty-Fourth Secretary of State.
Madeleine Albright.
I’m sorry I misunderstood you, Madam Secretary.
And I wanted you to know how much I appreciated,
And still remember,
Your very kind gesture
On that parade field
Some thirty years ago.