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By Riley Maddox
I think that we are all often guilty of being trapped in our small bubbles, only seeing the world through the lens of our own eyes. We often forget just how huge our little world is. We go about our days, only thinking about ourselves, our problems, and our struggles. The last month has been like that for me. I've been pretty stuck in my own head, focusing a lot on my own problems and my schoolwork. Last week, I had the opportunity to represent the University of Louisville as one of three delegates sent to the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference. Originally, I was stressed about attending this conference, as school was starting to come to an end, and I had many final papers and exams to prepare for. However, Monday morning, I found myself on a plane heading to Annapolis, ready for whatever this conference would throw at me.
When I first arrived at Annapolis, I was greeted by humongous trees and beautifully constructed buildings. The weather was perfect, just warm enough to be outside without feeling gross. The Naval Academy campus is breathtakingly beautiful, and being able to drive across the bridge and enter the campus for the first time was an experience I will never forget. On the first day of the conference, I was able to meet delegates from all over the world. There were two military delegates from the military academy in Romania, and they were in my roundtable group. It was amazing being able to talk to people from different countries and hear their perspectives on foreign affairs and the US government. That night, I ate dinner with the two Romanian delegates and bombarded them with a million questions about the culture and life in Romania. They also had a lot of questions about life in the US. I remember one of the Romanian delegates was shocked that school buses existed in real life; they weren’t just something out of a TV show.
Through my roundtable groups, I was able to engage in lots of discussion about foreign affairs, specifically regarding social media. My roundtable was focused on the impact of social media surrounding the military and how we can better improve social media to allow for a more positive view of the military through the public eye. In order to attend the conference, you had to write a paper on a topic of your choosing. I decided to write my paper on the impact of veteran stereotypes on recruitment rates for the US military. We often associate PTSD and mental and physical disabilities with veterans in the United States. Because of these negative portrayals of veterans, recruitment rates have been very severely impacted. No American wants to join an organization that is going to leave them mentally and physically disabled. While charitable organizations as well as the US government do a lot of work in providing resources for veterans who have mental and physical disabilities, they must be careful that they do not perpetuate these stereotypes, which can be destructive to recruitment rates. I was able to present on my paper on the last day of the conference, and it was awesome to hear everyone else’s opinions about my topic. It was also super awesome to hear everyone else’s topics and papers, and see how they related back to mine.
Through the conference, I got to hear from world-leading experts on civil-military relations, as well as the ambassador to Australia, and the Director of the CIA. It was amazing to be able to interact with these people and gain a better understanding of civil-military relations through their eyes. It was also very interesting to listen to the delegates from other countries speak about civil-military relations, relating to their own home country, and see how the US can do a better job at creating positive relationships between civilians and the military. When the conference wrapped up, I was very sad to leave all of the amazing friends and relationships that I had built through the conference. At the same time, that sadness was replaced with so much joy that I was able to get out of my comfort zone and attend such an amazing conference.
On the ride home to Louisville, I was listening to my playlist on my phone. As I looked out the window, the song "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong came on. I reflected upon the lyrics of the song and I felt so grateful that I was able to experience a world outside my own. A world where people from all over the United States could come together in one room and share their thoughts without fear or judgement. A world where I had the amazing opportunity to represent my home state of Kentucky in a conference at the United States Naval Academy. A world where I got to get outside of my own head and experience the world through the lens of others. I looked out the window and I thought to myself, "what a wonderful world".
