This summer, two members of the same midshipmen company from consecutive graduating classes of the Naval Academy took command of two of the Navy's eleven nuclear aircraft carriers within a few weeks of each other. To the layman, that may not seem like a big deal. Anyone familiar with the path to becoming a nuclear air craft carrier skipper understands. Those who understand what it's like to be company mates at Annapolis know the deeper significance too. To occupy the same deck in Bancroft Hall for three years and then, 25 years later, to concurrently command two of the most powerful strategic naval assets the world has ever seen sounds more like something out of a bad war movie script than reality. And for good reason. Statistically, it should never happen.
I asked GPT-5 to do a layered analysis of just how likely it was based on how the carrier skipper pipeline works and how the Naval Academy Brigade of Midshipmen is structured. And the numbers told me what I already knew. The chance that any Naval Academy grad is selected to be a carrier skipper is roughly 1 in 300; orders of magnitude higher than any other educational institution for obvious reasons but still highly improbable for any one graduate. The chance that two skippers come from back to back classes and were in the same one of 36 Brigade companies puts that number at close to 1 in 100,000.
There have only ever been 90,000 graduates of Annapolis over the last 170 years; only about 60,000 since modern aircraft carriers were a thing. Once you add in the likelihood of their assumption of commands happening in the same few weeks, the probability starts to spiral off into the exponentially low. There is no documented proof of it ever happening before (happy to be proved wrong). And we're not likely to ever see it again.
Besides the novel peculiarity of the event, there's another reason I'm writing about it. It was my company. And the years they were there were my years. One of them was my roommate. The other was in the same 12 person squad with me. For me, this is example number infinity that the real treasure of military service is the remarkable people you wander into when you serve. And the lesson of standing around next to one day towers of professional success when they were dumb college kids is worth sharing.
Now, I could spin a retroactively biased narrative of how there was something uniquely dynamic about my subgroup of academy friends to have such unlikely success happen twice. I'll pass on that, tempting as it is. For there really to be something there, we probably need a third skipper to pop out to make this more than a crazy coincidence. The better story to tell is what is gleaned from watching the extreme outliers of my once peer group over the last 25 years. That's the good stuff.
The lesson, contrary to many self help optimization books, is not really about talent or motivation. I've had the good fortune of working in extremely high performing groups. So I've mostly been surrounded by energetic, talented, smart, charismatic people. Nearly all of them have not made it to the top of their domains though. Because that's not how the tops of career mountains work. There's always just a few. And the few that have, these two carrier skippers included, don't separate themselves by talent or motivation. Instead, they all seem to have two zero defect things in common:
The first is focus. If you're talented and motivated, you can be anything. But you can't be everything. So if the top of the mountain is what you seek, you usually only get one mountain that big. And it helps to start climbing it early. That's lesson one.
The second one is really the great filter. And it's not a popular one because it goes against a lot of current popular social narratives. It's commitment. And the hard reality that most of the time, you really can't have it all.
There are lots of focused, talented people. But there are few that are truly committed. And by committed I mean willing to drag themselves and everyone they care about through decades of sacrifices most people would never consider for any reward in the world. They live places they don't want to live. They spend months and even years away from loved ones. They miss holidays and birthdays. They deal with bosses they hate and unwinnable tasks they can't walk away from for pay they almost always could improve on if they chose to jump ship. They put off buying homes. They never live in homes they bought. And their families are mostly defined by being the spouses and kids of whatever it is that they had their eye on being. It's not for everyone. In fact, it's barely for anyone at all. Which is the point.
Lesson two is that you can have it all. As long as the all that you seek fits into the suitcase you're willing to haul up the mountain.
Focus. And commitment. Those are the two filters that narrow the talent peak. You can make mistakes and survive. You can move at variable speeds to the goal. But you can't get off the mountain. And you can't get to the top of one by completing an equally daunting task of climbing many smaller ones.
One of the great experiences I've had in life is watching old friends realize their lifelong goals at the end of the massive sacrifices they've made. This experience is another wonderful example. I remember those two when we were where we were together. I'd be lying if I said I thought that either of them would be where they are today. Not because I doubted their ability. But because the thing that was going to decide it was the sort of thing you just can't see when you're starting out. There are no shortcuts. You've got to go through it. And they did.
I knew pretty early on that I wasn't the one path sort. That doesn’t mean that I was immune from the pangs of envy along the way, watching my peers take command of ships and fighter squadrons or being named to the C level of powerful multinational firms or drive to work every day to the White House. It helped me come to the reckoning that while my approach cost me the upper bounds of focused success, I'd bought an amazing and eclectic path of my own. And that's its own mountain in and of itself.
Once you cross that mental bridge, perspective is easy to find. And you're free to experience the wins of those that were a part of your journey as you should; with the joy and appreciation that really only comes from witnessing success end to end. Family wins are the best wins. And that's what this was.
Bravo Zulu Gents. You’re a long way from deck 4-2. And we're all damned proud of you. Free 19.
Thank you- this is well articulated. A mentor once told me that nobody ever wins awards for balance. We need people who become masters of traditional trades (like commanding warships). We need others to challenge the traditional way of doing things. We need others to bring people together to change systems.