By Jim Noles
The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, is home to approximately 4,400 students – or, as they are known to the Army, cadets.
Of those hundreds of cadets, only about four dozen First Class cadets wear the rank of captain on their sleeves.
And, of those four dozen, the Corps of Cadet’s first captain stands singularly above them all – the highest-ranking cadet in the corps’ chain of command.
For the new 2024-2025 academic year, a 2020 graduate of Mountain Brook High School, Anna Caroline Robinson – “Caroline” to her friends and “ma’am” to the academy’s plebe class – will be that first captain.
“I never imagined that I could be the first captain one day when I first arrived at West Point back in 2021,” Robinson said, reflecting on her first days of the intense summer of basic training the cadets call Beast Barracks. “Being told that I had been selected to be first captain was the most humbling experience of my life.”
The first captain is responsible for the overall performance of the entire Corps of Cadets. Robinson’s leadership duties will include implementing a class agenda and acting as a liaison between the corps and the administration.
For Robinson, this is no small task. She is, of course, a college student, as well. She is majoring in American History and has regularly earned Dean’s List honors. For her, that means not only researching and writing a thesis, but also taking other required courses at the academy – in her case, cyber foundations, radiological engineering design and a pair of military leadership courses this semester.
Robinson’s final year at West Point also will become increasingly focused on her path to being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army – hopefully, she says, in the field artillery. After graduation in 2025, she will serve at least five years on active military duty.
It promises a different path than Robinson ever conceived back when she was walking the halls at Mountain Brook High School, or while playing competitive volleyball for Alabama Performance, a regional travel volleyball club based in Birmingham. It was volleyball – along with her outstanding academic record and a healthy dose of scrappy grit – that led her to West Point.
“I knew she was ready for the journey to West Point,” her mother, Jennifer Green, said. “Then I got her first letter from Beast Barracks. In it, she said ‘I love it, I love it, I love it.’ And I knew she would be alright.”
An Exercise in Balance
With all the demands on her schedule, time management is a critical skill for the new first captain.
Robinson sandwiched the interview for this article, for instance, between leading the entire corps on the traditional First Captain’s Run across the campus and joining the academy’s official delegation for lunch with visitor Elon Musk.
“You have to find the balance,” Robinson said. “You have to realize that you can’t put all of your time into one task. And you can’t do it all yourself. You have to rely on the people around you. I’m fortunate that I’m surrounded with some of the best and the brightest, and whatever I pour into them, they pour back into me.”
Retired Col. Kristin Baker is intimately familiar with the challenges ahead for Robinson. Baker in 1989 was selected as the academy’s first-ever female first captain.
“Off the top, it was an important, albeit difficult and intense, lesson in leadership. Not only do you stand in front of thousands leading the corps every football weekend, there’s the constant drumbeat of engagements behind the scenes during which you represent West Point,” she said, recalling the years 1989-1990.
“A good staff of men and women who have your back and can carry the load when you can’t is the key to achieving success,” Baker added.
Robinson isn’t the first Alabamian to hold the title first captain. Birmingham native James R. Ellis held the role before graduating from the academy in 1962. For 32 years, his career ranged from the Dominican Republic to Vietnam to Pakistan and included command of the famed 10th Mountain Division. He retired as a three-star lieutenant general in 1994.
Will the newest first captain’s career boast similar accomplishments?
Time will tell. And, in the meantime, as any cadet at West Point will tell you, there’s Navy to beat.
