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District 10 In The News |
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Cadet's Calling: Leland's Christine Chang finds the right college
Printed in the April 21, 2005 edition of the Almaden Resident
Article by Sandy Brundage
 Christine Chang will spend June in the Beast Barracks at the United States Military Academy at West Point, enduring six weeks of grueling basic training, hazing and humiliation.
For this, she became a citizen of the United States in December.
Her pursuit of West Point started as a joke last year. "On my dad's birthday, we went out to dinner. I like to wear basketball shorts and stuff. He said, 'You seem almost like a guy; why not go to West Point?'"
Chang recalled her mother saying: "What's West Point?"
Christine did a little research, found that the academy hosts a weeklong summer program--"Marching, marching, marching, you go everywhere marching"--and afterwards she knew she'd found the right school.
"I'm looking forward to the camaraderie," she said. "In high school, you're stereotyped. People think because I'm Asian I'm really smart and can't play sports. So at West Point, more people will be like me--athletic, student leaders, disciplined, getting things done."
West Point graduates must serve five years of active duty in the Army in exchange for a free college education that would otherwise cost more than $200,000. Christine said she wants to serve the five years she'll owe as a lawyer a lá the JAG television series. The possibility of being sent to Iraq doesn't bother her. "The war will probably be over by the time I graduate," she said.
Her friends all think she's crazy to swap Yale, where she has been admitted, for West Point. Her brother, a year behind her at Leland High School, now says he wants to go, too. But Christine thinks he's joking. If he's not, he better start getting ready.
Christine ticked off what she needed to do just to apply to West Point: Get a medical exam and an eye exam, write three essays, take a physical fitness exam, and demonstrate four years of accomplishment during high school. "And be a U.S. citizen--which I wasn't," she said.
Her parents, seeking a better life for their family, moved here from Korea when Christine was 3. They became U.S. citizens in October 2003, and Christine became a naturalized citizen a year later, just in time to qualify for West Point.
Besides her citizenship, Chri stine also needed a nomination from a U.S. congressman or senator. For that, she turned to Rep. Mike Honda, who represents a portion of Silicon Valley in Congress. He granted her an interview. By Honda's account, she shone.
"Christine Chang is a highly motivated, very accomplished, poised young person," Honda said. "By successfully balancing her many obligations, she demonstrates a maturity and organization that will serve her well in the challenging academic environment of West Point and in her life to come."
Christine was too modest to tell the Almaden Resident about all of her high school accomplishments. Honda, however, filled in the blanks: an A average; varsity basketball; class president; co-founder and co-president of an environmental club; peer tutoring; elementary teacher assistant; playing violin in the school orchestra; two summers spent building houses on Indian reservations.
"In short, she is an extraordinary young leader," said Honda, who said he is planning to host a reception in May to give Christine a grand send-off.
Advice from a graduate
On her first day at West Point, Christine expects "a whole bunch of people yelling in my face."
Judging by what recent West Point graduate and Almaden native Kari Burke remembers, Chang's not wrong. Burke, who graduated from Presentation High School, said the first summer resembles a movie about basic training--lots of hazing, lots of belittling and castigation, all with the aim of breaking cadets down in order to build them back up into an Army officer.
Burke got through Beast Barracks by thinking about the finish line. "I always knew there was an end to it: end of the day, end of the week, end of the minute. There's always an end. Sometimes it's farther away than you might think, but it will end."
Incoming cadets are broken into small squads of seven. Each group is assigned an upperclassman who doles out humiliation. "I tried to remember that they didn't just flip a switch and say, 'OK, I hate plebes.' These upperclassmen, who treat me like crap, actually have friends, so they can't be all bad," Burke said. "They only treat people like this because that's how they were treated."
The key to surviving Beast, according to Burke, is your squad. Sharing the same challenges forged bonds that lasted beyond four years of West Point, she said.
Another challenge facing new cadets from the West Coast is the East Coast weather. West Point sits on the Hudson River, 50 miles north of New York City. The summers are sticky, the winters snow-covered. Burke said the humidity had her sweating all the time during that first summer. "I saw my first thunderstorm with lightning when I was out there," she remembered. "I was sitting by the window watching it. My roommate from Nebraska thought I was crazy for watching a storm."
Surviving Beast is just the first step a first-year cadet--called a "plebe"--takes on the long four-year road to graduation. The academic courses at West Point are equally grueling.
"You try to stay up studying all night and do homework as late as you can, but they make you turn your lights out at midnight," said Burke. "You end up doing a lot of work by candlelight because officers walk around the barracks to check and see if your lights are off."
Basic training for parents
Christine's mother was initially skeptical about her daughter's choice of colleges. "Now, she's really supportive. But I think she's still worried but she doesn't show it," Christine said.
West Point can be just as hard on parents as on cadets. "[Kari] is our only daughter, our only child. It was very difficult to have her go 3,000 miles from home," said Burke's mother, Darlene. "You don't have access to them. We didn't hear from her for six weeks. We didn't know if she liked it or not."
First-year cadets may make two five-minute phone calls during Beast. Upperclassmen hold stopwatches and give 30-second warnings.
Brief letters are allowed; cadets are urged to bring pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes to the academy.
Burke remembers sending her mother the equivalent of an 'I'm all right' smoke signal.
"I had to write on an index card. It said, 'Mom, need bras, need five of 'em.' That was the only one I sent all week. At least they knew I was alive," Burke said, laughing. "And the bras arrived."
She often called home crying. But her parents stuck with the academy's advice and refused to talk about whether she should leave West Point, instead saying they'd discuss it when she came home during break. Burke said the advice works because by the time cadets get to come home the last topic they want to talk about is West Point. Meanwhile, parents gnaw their fingernails.
"We worried that she would do something silly. You can get kicked out at the drop of a bucket; they don't tolerate much; in academics don't tolerate much. For an overachiever like she is, getting kicked out would've ruined the rest of her life," Darlene Burke said.
But Burke prevailed, graduating in May of 2004 before being assigned to take charge of an engineering platoon that specializes in vertical construction--building structures like sleeping facilities, laundry facilities and outhouses. Her platoon, which is stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., had returned from Afghanistan just before Burke joined it.
Historic West Point
Visiting the academy also sealed Burke's decision. Her family flew out to see the campus on Nov. 17, when Burke was supposed to be signing a softball scholarship deal to attend the University of San Diego. She decided at the last minute that she should at least take a look at West Point before turning down her appointment. One look at the academy and Burke was ready to enlist.
"West Point is impressive--history, history, history. It's a place that's hard to leave," said Darlene Burke.
The academy opened 203 years ago when President Thomas Jefferson signed the legislation that created a college built on one of Gen. George Washington's old war camps.
According to the academy's website, "A favorite expression at West Point is that 'much of the history we teach was made by people we taught.' " Famous graduates include legendary Civil War generals from Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to contemporary leaders Gen. George S. Patton and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
Only 600 of 4,000 cadets currently enrolled at West Point are women. The academy didn't start admitting women until 1976.
Christine Chang has orders to report to West Point on June 26. Packing won't take long, though, as Christine is only allowed to take one big blue laundry bag, an alarm clock, one 8 x 10 picture frame, and some clothes. "No stereo, no nothing!" she said. She paused for a long moment, then added, "It's a whole new level of toughness. I wonder if I'll be able to get through."
She'll leave West Point with more than she brought. After four years Christine will emerge as a second lieutenant in the Army dedicated to the academy's motto: Duty, Honor, Country.
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