James Rose raised me alone, and he raised me to believe that the measure of a person was not what they announced about themselves, but what the work revealed when nobody was watching.
That was the model I carried forward. That was the standard I held myself to, and it was the standard I would eventually hold everyone else to, including the woman who would spend seven years trying to convince me I did not belong in my own marriage.
Growing up in a naval household meant structure was not imposed. It was ambient.
Dinner was at a consistent time. Shoes were placed by the door. Conversations had a rhythm, and the rhythm was built around respect. You spoke when you had something to say. You listened when someone else did. And you did not waste people’s time with noise dressed up as substance.
My father was not cold. He was precise.
And when he told me at 12 years old that I could be anything I was willing to work for, he did not mean it the way motivational posters mean it. He meant it literally. Work was the mechanism. Willingness was the fuel. Everything else was scenery.
I entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in August of 2008. I was 18.