CEO Notes hero June25

CEO Notes

June 2025
Congratulations to all 2025 graduates! Help launch the career of a new graduate or give dad something more inspiring than a tie with the Naval Institute’s gift membership option.
Training and experience sometimes allow service members to hide feelings of despair and loneliness from the rest of their unit. But it is crucial to ask for help when help is needed.

Outside the Lifelines

By Senior Chief Petty Officer Joseph Hoff, U.S. Coast Guard
June 2025
Training and experience sometimes allow service members to hide feelings of despair and loneliness from their unit. But it is crucial to ask for help when help is needed.
The author led a detachment of Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (above) on a construction project in the Republic of Georgia on the Black Sea, where she learned the strength of her team would determine the mission’s success or failure.

Building Resilience

By Lieutenant Leah Gordon, U.S. Navy
June 2025
Leadership Essay Contest—Second Prize. In the face of real-world challenges, it is the strength of the team that determines whether we succeed or fail.
Trapped in the engineering spaces after the USS Lexington (CV-2) suffered two torpedo hits, Fireman Apprentice Vernon Highfill’s only way out was up.

Narrow Escape from the Lady Lex

By Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, U.S. Navy (Retired)
June 2025
When Vernon Highfill, fresh from basic training, reported to the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-2) in spring 1942, he found himself in a strange new world.
July Hero

Asked & Answered

June 2025
What undergraduate academic course, either at a service academy or civilian college or university, proved most valuable to you during active-duty service, and why?
oath of office

Warriors Don’t Fear Ideas

By Jason Chen, Kristen Kavanaugh, and Michael Smith
June 2025
If the Naval Academy is to develop future warriors, scholars, leaders, and citizens of the highest caliber, it must encourage them to think independently.
Future USS Enterprise (CVN-80)

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste

By The Honorable Sean Stackley
June 2025
Twenty years ago, after a near-decade hiatus in submarine construction at Newport News Shipbuilding, the yard was in the throes of overcoming challenges delivering its first Virginia-class submarine, the USS ...

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