Joel Tidd’s legs carried him to many medal-winning performances as an Iola High School cross country and track performer. This summer he will develop sea legs.
In his second semester at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., Tidd will spend four weeks on a summer cruise.
“I don’t know yet whether it will be on a submarine or a surface ship,” said Tidd, who was to leave today to return to the Academy following a spring break visit with parents David and Julie Tidd and siblings. “I’d prefer a sub, to see if I’d enjoy serving on one.”
Tidd has a five-year obligation to Navy service after he is graduated from the Academy.
Submarine service sounds exciting to Tidd and he is aware that the Navy “is hard-pressed to find sub officers.”
He has done his research.
Service on a submarine — all in the U.S. arsenal are nuclear-powered — involves either fast-attack craft, expected to intercept enemy surface ships and submarines, and ones that carry ballistic missiles. The attack subs also often support operations of Navy SEALs and are dispatched wherever and whenever needed.
“Subs carrying ballistic missiles are on a more regular schedule,” Tidd said, with two separate crews: One is on duty for two months while the other remains in port.
Before he’s sent to sea, Tidd will begin the summer acquainting high school students between their junior and senior years with the Naval Academy.
“I went through the experience, kind of like a summer military camp, in 2008,” Tidd said, before he won an appointment. “I enjoyed that experience and applied to help with this summer’s,” which will run five days. He was one of 150 plebes selected from 600 applicants for the position.
The last four to five weeks of the summer he will be home for his first extended stay since he enrolled last summer. He skipped coming home Thanksgiving because of cost — $400 to $500 for air fare — and because it would have been for just three or four days. He was here during the Christmas break, but spent part of that hiatus in Houston at the Texas Bowl, where Navy played Missouri.
“I was in the drum and bugle corps this year, which gave me opportunities to do quite a bit of traveling, including football games at Ohio State and in South Bend (Ind.), where we beat Notre Dame,” Tidd said.
HIS FIRST prolonged stay away from Iola didn’t have Tidd pining for home cooking.
“I missed going to (Iola High) cross country meets and basketball games and I missed my family, but I really didn’t get homesick,” he said, in large measure because of a busy academic schedule and having to adjust to military lifestyle.
After having been one of six valedictorians in his 2009 graduating class at Iola High, Tidd said he was not overwhelmed by rigorous academic demands of the Academy.
“I had a 3.1 (grade point average) the first semester,” he said, and anticipates doing better now that he is settled in and will pursue more courses in his major, mathematics, in the years ahead.
All students take the same courses the first year, such things as math, chemistry, government, Naval history, seamanship and navigation. Each graduate, regardless of major, is awarded a bachelor of science degree at the end of four years of study, “even if you major in English or history,” he said, because of the preponderance of math and science courses required of all students.
IT’S TOO early for Tidd to make commitments about what life after the Academy might entail. He will have the five-year obligation to fulfill and will decide during that time whether a military career is something he wants to pursue.
“I do want to serve on a surface ship or a submarine and I want to have experiences as broad as I can,” he said. “If I enjoy serving, I may want to make the Navy a career. If I don’t, hopefully I’ll have lots of opportunities.”
