Response to “Trouble on the Coast”

Dear Editor,

After being asked to write a follow up to my comment on last week’s article, “Trouble on the Coast,” regarding Conn/CGA relations, I was excited to have the chance to inspire more discussion on the issues. I ask that you read this with introspection. With this letter, I hope to spur an intelligent, reflective conversation regarding the divide between our two schools, and where it might have come from.

Don’t go to Conn. You’ll only get in trouble. It’s not worth it, and you aren’t wanted there anyway. This is essentially what every fourth class (freshmen) cadet hears over and over again as the school year gets underway.  We heard horror stories from the administration of arrests and drunken fights, and for the most part we took their advice.

But now that I’m on the outside, I am better able to reflect on the circumstances under which such advice was offered. Isn’t it sad that the relationship between Conn and CGA includes warnings about the other? But this is what the relationship has come to.

Already with an understanding of how CGA cadets view Conn, I spoke to a few of my friends who are Conn students, both male and female. I wanted to know where this animosity came from. One friend said much of the distaste was handed down by older students. He added that he had never really had any serious interaction at all with a cadet, aside from myself, never mind a negative one, but at the same time he still felt a certain bitterness toward them. When asked if there were any other reasons he didn’t like cadets, he said, “Why would I like them if they don’t like me?”

Statements like this only continue the cycle of distaste. I asked another student why she thought there was a general distrust of cadets at Conn. She said flatly that the guys don’t like them because they come over and increase competition for girls, and girls don’t like them because they thought the cadets had only come over looking for girls. This seemed logical, in a twisted sort of way. She said she herself harbored no resentment toward the Coasties, but that her friends had expressed views to this effect. Never having been a Conn student myself, and not having spoken to more than my friends at Conn, I cannot guess at what other reasons might be. Still, I feel that the issues aren’t that simple.

Indeed, I know they aren’t. When I attended the Academy, Conn was the butt of many lighthearted jokes. Even teachers made them. “You have to take this class and get it out of the way now so you can go take basket-weaving at Conn as a senior.” (Basket-weaving was replaced on occasion with Bob Dylan or Art). After wishing that I were, in fact, taking a class as interesting as Bob Dylan instead of the drivel that was Differential Equations, I thought about how deep-seated this conflict had become. Some officers (former cadets) who were our teachers gave us reports of the same atmosphere between the two campuses from when they attended the Academy. The fact that as long ago as fifteen or twenty years before we arrived cadets were voicing the same sentiments about Conn suggests our distrust stems from the distant past.

It was at this point in my thinking that I told myself, how this issue arose is not the problem. Not at all, actually. I feel that if you view yourself as a mature, responsible student, you have a duty to, at the very least, respect the other campus. It all comes down to that tired mantra, “You don’t have to like them, but you have to respect them.” It’s a cliché for a reason.

On the subject of respect, when I hear tuition come up as ammunition against either school, I get really annoyed. I hope others do, too. When a cadet says, “Your parents pay [X amount] dollars for you to go to Conn!” as a taunt, I have to ask, Who would be paying your tuition regardless of what it was? I’m fairly sure, cadet, that if you wanted to go to your home state university or GWU or even Conn that your parents would do whatever they could in order for you to go there, since you sure as hell wouldn’t be able to afford paying your own tuition. And Conn students: when I hear, “My tax dollars are paying your tuition!” I ask, so what? Cadets sacrifice time, sleep, family, and freedom getting their education and serving their country. Their sacrifice affords you a service that this country wouldn’t be able to live without. So yes, your tax dollars are being used to pay for their education.

Regardless of why there is this enormous divide between these two campuses, I think we owe it to ourselves and future students and cadets alike to work to foster at least a cheerfully tolerant atmosphere. Obviously, it’s easier said than done, and will be a long process, but I feel it to be a worthy ideal. Maybe you don’t—that’s up to you. But ask yourself, why shouldn’t there be a positive relationship between Conn and the Coast Guard Academy?

-Name Withheld, CGA