We're Building Momentum
By Commandant of Cadets Maj. Gen. Randal D. Fullhart, U.S. Air Force (retired)
There’s a certain feeling of energy that normally appears in the spring. This year, it is deeper and wider than usual. Part of it is that the hope of emergence from the pandemic’s trials is being felt throughout the community — and most assuredly amongst our staff and cadets.
After the loss of the 2020 spring semester and a return in the fall to a protocol-filled environment and the uncertainty of whether we could make it, we again have the sense that all is possible.
We finished the 2021 spring semester and graduated the senior class in-person. Our rising seniors are ready to take the lead this fall, and our rising juniors and sophomores are ready for more.
Then there’s the changing landscape of the Upper Quad as we prepare to break ground on the Corps Leadership and Military Science building, followed by our third cadet residence hall.
Construction trailers! Construction fences! People with safety vests and hard hats everywhere! We’ve seen them before. When they are working, we see the future rising before our eyes. When they are gone, we have new places to live and new places to inspire our efforts.
We will have new faces joining our staff. And of course, we are saying farewell for now to cadets we have watched grow into confident young leaders, and we prepare for new ones to arrive to follow in their boot steps.
It is hard to express how proud I am of our team. “All in” takes on new meaning in a pandemic. They and their families, all have been touched. It’s been personal. Yet they never disconnected from the cadets and our important mission.
In the military construct, we try to explain the ethos of family with phrases such as, “Take care of your troops.” Well, the cadets who have been through this together now understand what that means in a much deeper way, and our staff has been there with them every step of the way.
That’s also true for the families of the cadets and alumni of the Corps. You each have your own stories to tell from this pandemic. We are grateful that you have been in this with us, checking in, sharing a kind word, participating during Giving Day, and offering support large and small. It mattered … thank you.
As we always do throughout the year, we have had special guests to share their stories with the cadets as part of the Cutchins Leadership Lecture Series. Most recently, Col. Lee Ellis, a former Vietnam prisoner of war and author of some of the books that we use in our classroom work, delivered a message about honor to the regiment. His experience helped to put the challenges we are facing today in perspective and reminded us that no matter what we face as individuals, or as a country, we must “return with honor.”
Our Global Scholars program continues to grow as cadets hunger for learning the leadership lessons of history. Because of ongoing travel restrictions, we shifted our focus from Europe to the Pacific and will be taking two groups of cadets to Pearl Harbor this month after a semester-long study of the events and decisions leading up to and beyond that fateful Dec. 7, 1941.
As we look ahead to the fall semester, we are encouraged by the large number of Virginia Tech applicants indicating their interest in joining our Corps.
I hope that you enjoy this wonderful edition of your magazine. You’ll get a sense from the articles of this building momentum. Hope. Energy. Perseverance. Leaders.