Friends bond over military training

BLOOMINGTON — Military academy might mean a 1,600-mile distance between friends Mary McCullers and Hannah Bobell, but it’s also the very thing that keeps them close.

The two friends met at church while in the seventh grade. They’re both excellent students, athletic, outgoing and driven — qualities that helped each of them gain admission into prestigious military academies.

McCullers, of Bloomington, is in her first year at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, where she’s studying behavior science. Bobell, of Heyworth, is a freshman at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, where she’s studying Chinese.

Bobell was one of more than 19,000 applicants to the academy’s class of 2015 and one of only about 1,230 who were accepted, 236 of whom are women. She’s ranked first in her class for academic achievement.

Bobell is also on the marathon team and learning to fence, all while being trained to become a leader in the military — the part of her college experience that makes it so different from most others.

“You can’t speak until spoken to. There’s no media or movies. . You have to sound off `yes, sir,’ `no, sir,’ `aye, aye, sir.’ There are all these little rules you have to go through for the entire year,” she said.

Those rules, and the busy nature of the academies, have made it difficult to communicate with those outside her program, but she and McCullers have too much in common not to stay in touch.

“All my roommates here know her by name by the stories I tell them from high school,” McCullers wrote in an email to The Pantagraph, explaining that phones are sometimes off limits. “It is amazing how similar our experiences are.”

Bobell said the two exchange stories about rules, regulations and seemingly insurmountable pressures. “You think you know about it, but you really kind of have to go through it to get the miseries and the joys,” she said.

McCullers is on the dean’s list and the commandant’s list, which denotes excellence in military performance, said Robert McCullers, Mary’s father. Both of Mary McCullers’ parents graduated from the Air Force Academy, but they never pushed the academy.

“Some kids are definitely going to say, `Hey, this is not for me,”’ Robert McCullers said, noting too that the academies are essentially four-year, full-ride scholarships with 100 percent job placement. When they graduate, both Bobell and McCullers will be required to spend at least five years in the service.

While the academies are rigorous and at times frustrating, it’s also rewarding, Bobell said.

She takes standard classes but also navigation and ocean engineering courses that mean boats become classrooms. Bobell will learn later this year if she’s to spend part of her summer training for marathons with the running team or working on a ship or submarine for a professional development requirement.

Bobell said her experiences so far, including lectures from four-star generals, have taught her about leadership and responsibility.

“This place has pushed me so much as a person. I’m doing things I never would have dreamed back in high school,” Bobell said. “When you truly believe you are born to do more than you have settled with, you can push yourself further than you ever thought you could.”

McCullers is learning those same lessons.

“It was a huge challenge and still is; however, it has developed my character so much,” McCullers said. “It is not about what party to go to this weekend, or next weekend and what to wear, it is about learning how to save lives and protect people.”