“The year was good. It was a lot of fun. It honestly couldn’t work out better than it did,” beamed NDA Alum Jacob Rose.

After graduating from Notre Dame in 2017, Rose took advantage of a full ride to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and his first year is coming to a close.

During his time at the Naval Academy, Rose was eager to take part in the “unique opportunities” that the military school offered. Rather than joining the walk-on track team, he joined the Special Operations team. This entails working out with Navy Seals and the Marine Corp and doing some “pretty insane stuff.”

“I also tried out for the combat arms team which is another unique opportunity there,” explained Rose. “It’s a shooting team, but we don’t shoot at a target just standing there. We move. It’s really dynamic. It’s stuff you would do in combat.”

Rose plans on doing Special Operations, and joining these groups at the Naval Academy gives him an edge in the future when he joins those “communities.”

Aside from a slew of unique opportunities, Rose has a great number of unique people to meet from all different places–including his roommates.

“I honestly couldn’t ask for better roommates,” said Rose. “We get along super well. We’re rooming together for next year.”

Rose, along with his roommates, wake up 0700 hours (or seven a.m.). After their morning routine, they go down to the Chow Hall. The meals are on a two-week rotation and are made to feed around 400 people. Rose described the food as “quantity over quality.”

But the food may be the only downside to the “beautiful” Naval Academy Campus.

“The Naval Academy, yes, it’s a school, but it’s also a big piece of history,” continued Rose. “So they have a lot of tourists come through. So a lot of people watch us, especially during the summer.”

He, along with others in his shipment, joke that they feel like “zoo animals.”

“They’ll come and watch us do formation,” he explained.  “I guess to them it’s a different perspective, but we do formation everyday so the familiarity breeds indifference.”

Yet, Rose is not unfamiliar to speculators.

“People will act very different when I’m in the uniform versus when I’m not,” said Rose.

Coming home for Thanksgiving was his first time in “civilian clothes.”

“Everyone looks at you,” he explained, “so when I put on normal clothes, and people didn’t stare–not to sound cocky or anything–it just felt weird!”

Rose has three more years of school left, then a mandatory five years of service. He plans on becoming an aviation pilot and work with helicopters.

“My goal is career military,” Rose stated. “When I graduate, I’ll commission, and I’m looking to commission as a Marine Corp officer.”

When Mrs. Brown asked him if he had any regrets, Rose said not a split-second later and without a drop of doubt, “None.”