Saying Goodbye to the Forge

I arrived as an angry child, but left a leader.

At the age of 12, I felt comforted by the fluorescence of streetlights peering into my room. I’d sleep through every night as the tide of city life, from passing cars to booming block parties, continued all around me. The echoing of distant sirens did not phase me.

So when I first saw the dawning sunlight cascading over a sea of trees and fields, when I first laid my head down at night to a silence broken only by chirping crickets and the mournful hoots of owls, you can imagine how far from home I felt.

Yet this was supposed to be my new home.

When she first sent me to the Forge, my mother saw military school as a last resort in response to a seemingly endless chain of misbehavior, both at home and at school. At age 11, I’d already felt handcuffs on my wrists. I was not on a path to success.

Mom started leaving brochures on the kitchen table, featuring glossy images of teenagers in flat-brim hats and gray uniforms. I thought it was all one big, drawn-out joke. But my mom was dead serious and, a few weeks before my 13th birthday, I started school at Valley Forge Military Academy.

After my fifth failed attempt at running away, I called mom and begged her to take me home. Gripping the phone and holding back tears, I rattled off whatever I thought she wanted to hear from me.

“I love you so much.”

“I promise I will be better.”

“You were right and I was wrong.”

But nothing was going to change her mind.

Mom spoke slowly but clearly from the other end of the line: “Wes, you are not going anywhere until you give this place a try. I am so proud of you, and your father is proud of you, and we just want you to give this a shot,” she said. “Too many people have sacrificed in order for you to be there.”

Click.

The decision was final. I would stay at Valley Forge.

I wish I could say that everything suddenly turned around in my life. That a heavenly light shined down on me and illuminated a path to success. That after hearing that click, I slid down the wall while crying in despair, only to wipe my tears away and resolve to change my ways the very next day.

In reality, I was just plain angry at my mom. There was no overnight miracle. I stayed angry with her for a long time.

But time wore down my stubbornness. And slowly, things started to change. On those occasions when I would actually listen to my teachers, I heard them talk about honor, code, and service. After being assigned a few marginal leadership positions in my class in order to teach me responsibility, I learned what it meant to be accountable for the person to my left and my right. I started to take a real interest in campus life and academics, and by the time I had left, I had risen to first captain in command of around 800 cadets.

After graduation, I went on to study at Johns Hopkins and Oxford, deployed to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division, ran one of the largest poverty-fighting organizations in the country, and now, I serve as the 63rd governor of Maryland and the first Black governor in the history of my state.

And now after nearly a century of operation, Valley Forge Military Academy — the place where I grew from an angry child with a complicated past to a confident young man who’d earned the respect of his peers — will be closing.

What saddens me most isn’t losing a place I once called home. My memories – from that disorienting arrival, my many escape attempts, the personal challenges, and eventual triumphs – will forever live on with me.

What made our campus wasn’t just the buildings and traditions and ground. What made our campus special was the opportunity it offered and the growth it demanded. What truly saddens me about this news is that other young men like me will have one fewer avenue to challenge themselves and build their own pathway to success.

At a time where data shows our young men and boys are falling behind and feeling isolated, we have to offer more paths for connection and engagement. We have to help them find the thing that makes their heart beat a little faster, that drives them to take the imperfections of this world and create something better, that inspires them to serve.

I know that Valley Forge Military Academy did that for me. I’ve seen how our Maryland Corps and Service Year Option are doing that for young Marylanders.

As I remember how the morning sunrise would stretch over our campus all those years ago, scattering away the night and guiding me forward, I hope all of the Forge’s graduates pass on the lessons we learned and keeps the flame alive in a new generation.

Elevate,
Wes