Rampage: Deckplate Leadership Learned Under Sail

Warriors Publishing Group
15 min readAug 12, 2024

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by Brian Boland

The following is excerpted from Rampage: Deckplate Leadership Learned Under Sail by Brian Boland — now on shelves.

Chapter 1

Tucked against low dunes and sitting on the damp trampoline of a catamaran, I stared out at the Chesapeake Bay. A shapeless black mass underneath the warm summer air, the dark in front of me was pierced only by the evenly spaced lights of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel that ran north, far beyond an invisible horizon. I could hear dwarfed waves roll in from the Atlantic Ocean to the east, stretched thin as they ran west around Cape Henry only to be tamed again as they wrapped further south across shallow sandbars before finally spilling over and against the narrow sand at my feet. Gently rolling and rhythmic whitewater, briefly visible under the moonlight, ran up the shore only to disappear, the saltwater drawn out once more into the darkness. To me, the ocean had always been a living and breathing thing. I sat on a stretch of sand called Chic’s Beach, the place where I’d spent my youth, and was wholly consumed by the thought of leaving here in the morning.

Wrestling with feelings I wasn’t yet equipped to understand, I knew only that I’d be parting ways with home. In the years that followed, I would grasp those complex emotions more firmly, but in that moment, I couldn’t quite nail down whether it was excitement, nerves, remorse, or regret. In time I would realize that before any major journey in life, each of those emotions mixes with one another, swirling like rum, Coke, and a little bit of lime, and when taken together, the effects were intoxicating. Something new, something scary, something unknown. But perhaps most importantly, it was something that I wanted. The same complex part of the human psyche that had drawn sailors to the sea and astronauts to the moon was drawing me towards something as well. Everyone feels it in their life, but only a select few see those dreams come to fruition. It was that same bur- geoning restlessness that has led many an explorer to great fame and some to untimely deaths. Neither success nor failure were assured. I couldn’t be sure if I liked the feeling or dreaded it, but it was a feeling that was not going away. In the morning, I’d cross the Bay Bridge-Tunnel enroute to the United States Coast Guard Academy, where in just over 48 hours, I’d be re- porting in as a member of the class of 2003. In the grand scheme of things, it was a small step to take, but nonetheless one that would shape the rest of my life.

On the beach beside me sat a girl who was herself wholly consumed with attempts to draw from me some assurance that we’d stay in touch. To her dismay, I made no such promise, reckoning in my restless mind that the next four years would leave little room for hometown romances, especially those born haphazardly on the eve of a young man’s departure for military service. Clearly disappointed, she drove me back to my house and the night ended, well after the curfew imposed on me by my parents. Having been waitlisted by the academy ad- missions department for some time, it had been just over a month since I’d been tendered a full appointment, and I’d cor- rectly wagered that, given the particulars of my situation, no punishment awaited me if I stayed out too late.

Tracing its roots back to 1876, the Coast Guard Academy sits on roughly 100 acres of land on the west bank of the Thames River, at the southeast corner of Connecticut. The dark water of the Thames is drawn from a watershed that encompasses both Connecticut and parts of Massachusetts, fed by both the Yantic and Shetucket River before they combine to run south, past the city of New London, then into Long Island Sound. It runs with enough consistency to avoid icing over for all but the coldest days of a New England winter. Further south, and across the Sound sits the eastern tip of Long Island, with the North Atlantic Ocean beyond.

The academy itself is a scenic campus with old trees, a large and manicured parade field, and mostly red brick buildings in the classic New England style. To anyone but an 18-year-old mere minutes from reporting in with a freshman class, it is a picturesque campus. To the unfortunate few about to embark on their four-year journey towards a degree and a commission, it is nothing short of wildly intimidating. Chase Hall is the most foreboding building on the campus, serving as the barracks, or dorms, where all the students live during their four years as cadets. The peculiar rules by which cadets, and more specifically the freshmen known as Swabs, abide by while inside Chase Hall might seem cruel and unusual to some, but a spartan existence with an emphasis on physical discipline is a time-honored tradition at military academies around the world and has a proven track record of quickly transforming young men and women into capable military officers.

I brought little with me on the 6th of July 1999, all of my pos- sessions fitting into a small suitcase with plenty of room to spare. Sitting with my parents on a grassy embankment next to a parking lot, we waited for my designated time to report in. The wait was unpleasant as it served no purpose other than to delay the inevitable. I didn’t want to say goodbye, and yet at the same time, I would soon need to. I knew beyond a doubt that the next few days and weeks would be miserable and trying, but the un- ending wait for it to begin now seemed even worse than just getting the damn thing started. At the time, I couldn’t put myself in my parents’ shoes, but looking back now, I have little doubt that they were feeling many of the same things.

When my time came, I carried my suitcase with the few items I’d been told to bring, namely white socks, white under- wear, and white V-neck t-shirts, and checked in with some senior cadets at a folding picnic table before stepping rather unceremoniously into the ‘quad’ which was a concrete open- air space surrounded on each side by towering brick walls. With me, and as instructed, I also had an alarm clock, although the AM/FM radio feature would be off-limits until a future yet- to-be determined date. Beyond those essentials, I’d brought two framed pictures, one of my father and me, the other my mother with the family dog. In a small photo album, I’d gathered a random selection of photographs as well, with the fool- ish hopes of delaying the inevitable loss of memories of my up- until-now civilian life.

With parents still on the campus, all of whom were craning their necks to see what torment awaited their precious little darlings, the first day was an uneventful affair. If we were yelled at, it was with muted voices and only briefly so as not to upset the spectators and, more importantly, future donors to the Parents’ and Alumni Associations. Within the first few hours, I wore a badly wrinkled uniform and was marching horribly out of step, paraded around the grassy expanse with a band playing somewhere from the sidelines. We were then given some time to say goodbye to our parents before being rounded up and quickly marched away.

Until we were given a full medical evaluation, we weren’t allowed to run, so the first week or so wasn’t all that bad. There was yelling and marching, followed by more yelling and more marching after that. Then we marched some more and got yelled at yet again to march better. Three meals were provided each day, which quickly became a test to see if we could get out of the calorie deficits we were all surely suffering from. We were each issued a ‘Running Light’ which was a pocket-sized book full of incredibly small font that educated us with infor- mation about the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard Academy, and how we were to conduct ourselves. Everything from Coast Guard Vessels and Aircraft (pages 57–81) to Phone Etiquette and Writing Messages (pages 127–128) were covered. Minutes after being handed our ‘Running Lights,’ we were told that we needed to immediately memorize all 172 pages. A moment or two later, our cadre, the second-class (junior year) cadets were ripping into us for why we had not yet memorized the contents of the little books we’d just been handed. At times it was intim- idating, and at others the entire ordeal bordered on the comical.

My first letter home, dated July 14th 1999, started out, The other night we had a ceremony where we married our rifles. I then explained to my parents how I’d named my rifle Pamela Lee, after the star of the non-critically acclaimed television show, Baywatch. It was a somber ceremony late one night where each of us Swabs were given a rifle and then marched up a dimly lit hallway to a table where several cadre were seated. We then stood at attention and were asked for the name we’d chosen. Hopefully I drew some laughs, but I can’t recall. Afterwards, each of us were then sent back to our rooms with our rifles and told to sleep with them in our beds for the night. Truthfully, Pamela Anderson bore much of the responsibility for my choosing to enter the Coast Guard, as I had watched the show throughout high school and had been intrigued with the cameo appearances of Coast Guard boats and helicopters. I would find out in the coming years that Hollywood often does a tremendous disservice in providing an accurate depiction of military life.

I closed the letter asking for packaged food and tried to as- suage the fears my parents were no doubt harboring by telling them I’d gone to church. In reality, Sundays afforded us the opportunity to attend the services of our chosen faith. Many of us quickly renewed our relationship with god, at least for those first few weeks. In addition to not being yelled at for an hour or so, I discovered that the clergy, from both the Catholic and Protestant faiths, set out a spread of orange juice and snacks to nourish their flock after their respective morning services. Within a week, I was attending both the Catholic and Protestant services, one immediately after the other, reaping the rewards of unlimited donuts and blueberry muffins. Church itself was a miserable experience, as most cadets sat around trying to hide the tears that were welling in the corners of their eyes, but the donuts were good and provided some free calories to prep for the Monday morning workouts looming over all of us.

For an incoming class, that first summer is referred to as Swab Summer, harkening to the nautical term for a mop. There I was, no longer an individual, but now part of something greater than myself. I had become a mop and spent a great deal of time reflecting on all the other mops that had come through those gates over the past 100-plus years and how they must have felt. One key component to military indoctrination is the process of breaking down individuals so that they no longer thinks in terms solely of themselves. Military history is full of examples where individuals did great and heroic things not for themselves, but for the greater good. It could be argued that this is not a normal human instinct, so the military finds creative ways to build young recruits up into the desired mold. It did not take long for them to break me down. I do, however, believe that the building-back-up process is the far more complex of the two, and as I would find out, that latter process played out much slower than the former and in entirely different ways.

Each day, we were up early in the morning, doing calisthenics and running in formation through the chilly New England air. After a quick breakfast, our days were a mix of classroom lectures, obstacle courses, and seemingly unending hours of pushups and circuitous formation runs around the academy grounds. Throughout each day, our eyes were to be kept “in the boat” meaning we were not supposed to look around. At anything. Whatever was directly in front of us, that was what we were supposed to look at. Thankfully, the long runs provided brief windows of time to look around the campus and take in the sights.

Perhaps more than any other single activity including sleep, we marched. Marching, once you get the hang of it, isn’t all that bad. But learning can be a challenge to the uninitiated, made even worse by our cadre. For the Swabs, they were akin to drill instructors. In reality, they were a mere two years older than us, but most were well-versed in screaming, the art of making angry faces, the appearance of an always meticulous uniform, and other general acts of intimidation. Day after day, we marched with our rifles and learned the manual of arms as our cadre barked out commands in front of us.

We carried M1 Garand rifles. With each command from our cadre, we were to perform some ceremonial twist or pivot of our unloaded rifles, all of which culminated with a manual cycling of the action. We would push the charging handle back, lock the action and await the next command. Soldiers at war carried en bloc clips loaded with eight rounds of 30–06 Springfield ammunition, which were inserted into the open action and the bolt would then close and load a round. We had no clips with us, so we were instructed to mash our thumbs down to the slide and follower to release the bolt. I knew little about guns at the time or that the M1 Garand had been a favorite of General Patton during the Second World War.

Designed by John Garand, the rifle had been a critical weapon for the American GIs as they fought all over the world. As I found out, it also had a unique propensity to violently pinch one’s thumb when the operating rod slammed forward and the bolt shut. Lost on us at the time also was the fact that firearms technology had come a long way since 1945. Modern rifles were lightweight and short in overall length to facilitate ease of use. The M1 Garand was long and heavy, made even heavier by the lead that had been poured down all of our barrels in order to render the weapons inoperable, lest one of us get any bad ideas.

The long days of physical conditioning in early July didn’t bother me. After receiving my official appointment, I’d spent the previous month running miles on Chic’s Beach each morning to prepare myself. My father had attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated with the class of 1973, so I had some insider information, albeit slightly dated, that the ability to run for long periods of time would be of tremendous benefit. No single piece of advice could have prepared me better for that first summer.

As the days wore on, it became apparent that at some future date, we’d have the opportunity to spend some time at the academy waterfront. For the first few weeks, I’d catch glimpses of it during our runs or long marches around the campus. Down on the Thames River, an armada of sailboats awaited us, small FJs and 420s that were pulled up neatly on the floating docks. Beyond that, a fleet of J-22s floated quietly in their slips, several Luders Yawls were tied to a dock just south of them, and lastly a random selection of larger boats just further to the south on another dock caught my attention. Having grown up on and in the water, I missed it terribly during those first few weeks. I knew nothing about sailing, but as I ran in formation during those humid July days, I was quietly dreaming of the oppor- tunity to somehow get on those boats.

At last, towards the end of July, we were marched down to the waterfront in our goofy boat shoes and dropped off for the afternoon with a new cadre. A long wooden causeway led out to the sailing center, a white building perched on Jacob’s Rock. These ‘waterfront cadre’ were the same class of juniors as the ones that had run us into the ground up the hill, but they seemed far less menacing in their khaki shorts and t-shirts as they tried to lecture us on the basics of seamanship. Sailboat nomenclature and the tying of basic knots took up much of the first lecture. In short time, we were paired up, outfitted with life jackets, and given sails. Down and onto the floating docks, these cadre then helped us rig up our dinghies before we pushed off into the Thames.

In the heat of the summer, any real breeze was nonexistent as we floated around with our sails mostly luffing in the idle wind. But a point came when my sails found some wind, the boat heeled over just slightly and looking aft, I saw a faint wake behind us. I was sailing. Adding to my great pleasure was the fact that no cadre were in sight to yell at us. For the most part, we were left alone for an hour or two on the river. Several of the cadre motored around in small skiffs, making sure none of us floundered on the rocks of the east bank of the river or drifted too far to the south with the current.

Many of my classmates had been recruited for specific sports. Several were accomplished high-school sailors and were therefore highly sought after by the sailing team. I quickly figured out which ones knew what they were doing and studied their movements from my floundering dinghy. At first I could do little more than mimic whatever actions they were performing, but it didn’t take all that long to sort out the basics. Keeping the bow just off the wind kept the sails full and hiking one’s own body weight out to windward to counter the heeling of the boat yielded even better speed. Holding the tiller, I controlled the rudder and worked slowly to smooth out and steady my course up and down the river. Those with considerable experience made the act of sailing look smooth and controlled, each of their movements a choreographed routine whereby they wasted the least amount of the boat’s energy and surged ahead of the rest of us. I was no doubt flailing around and unnecessarily spilling wind from my sails. But I was sailing.

I learned that by pulling in the main and jib sheets in stronger winds, the sails could be loaded up and their energy transferred to moving the boat even faster through the water. A centerboard was pushed down through a narrow slit in the middle of the boat, adding some countering moment against the constant tendency to want to roll over on its side. Tacking was turning through the wind and a quick shift from one side of the boat to the other kept the small dinghy working upwind. Downwind was similar, although the jibe maneuver knocked many of my classmates into the water as the boom swung wildly across the cockpit. Because of this, the small clinic on base served as the Coast Guard’s preeminent facility for quickly stitching up head lacerations. At the time, checking for signs of a concussion were not as in vogue as they are now, but I have little doubt that there were a fair number of rattled brains that summer. Years later, the academy began to require swabs to wear helmets while on the water and this was no doubt a welcome step to preserve the mental capacities of future Coast Guard leaders.

That day, I managed to stay in my boat. And with each subsequent day on the water, I learned as much as I could, trying on each occasion to go faster and farther with less clumsiness through each tack and jibe. On at least one balmy afternoon, I jumped in the river and held onto the rudder with both my hands, my classmate still in the boat, holding the sheets for both the main and jib while looking at me with confusion on their face. I didn’t care. I felt the boat pull me along, the cool water running around and over me as I dipped my head fully into the Thames and let the water rush over my neck and down my back. I was hooked.

For the rest of the summer, we were on the water every few days and with a little experience under our belts, the cadre put together a regatta for us. In my first race, I wrote to my parents in late July that I’d finished fifth. I considered my ability to successfully navigate a racecourse without grievous bodily injury to be a significant accomplishment. At the end of each session on the water, we pulled the boats back up on the docks, rolled and neatly put away our sails, then formed back up for the long march up the hill to Chase Hall, our more sinister cadre waiting patiently to remind us that this was no summer camp. I dreaded those marches, often sneaking a look back at Jacob’s Rock and torturing myself with daydreams of just one more hour on the water. Those days were the first glimmer of hope that I felt. Perhaps I’d survive the next four years. And if I did, I was all but certain that the waterfront would be my sanctuary.

About the Author: Brian Boland is a 2003 graduate of the United States Coast Guard Academy and holds a Master of Arts in Military History from Norwich University. After an initial assignment at sea, he completed Naval Flight Training and was designated a Coast Guard aviator in 2008. Having deployed extensively throughout the western hemisphere, Brian very happily retired from the Coast Guard in 2024 with the rank of Commander after having accrued over 5000 hours in the C-130 Hercules. He is also the author of The Cole Williams Story, a three-book series.

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