Yale University

Class News

Chris Getman ’64 meets Yale SEAL freshman Jimmy Hatch (audio)

Note from Tony Lavely, ’64 Class Secretary: From his enviable campus perch, Chris Getman was one of the first of many classmates to tell me about James Hatch, the 52-year-old Navy SEAL who is a first-year student at Yale.

Chris wrote: “I’m having lunch with Jimmy Hatch on Monday.  He’s been interviewed on National NPR twice and wrote a beautiful essay, ‘My Semester with the Snowflakes,’ published on Gen.Medium.com in December and widely circulated. He was a Navy SEAL and is in Directed Studies.  He has started a charity which helps injured service (military) dogs, because he believes his life was saved by a dog when trying to rescue Beau Bergdahl (the deserter) from the Taliban.  He was also on the Captain Philips expedition in 2009 following the hijacking of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama.”

After the “Snowflakes” article was posted on social media, many classmates commented.

  • John More: “It’s worth reading the whole article. Eloquent piece about the value of education, particularly the humanities.”
  • Ed Gaffney: “We don’t need more condescending friction in humanity. We need less. One step in the direction of less societal friction is to seek commonalities. Another step, and one that is sorely needed, is respect."
  • Pat Caviness:  “Excellent article. I actually envy the 52-year-old Navy SEAL. Liked his quote. ‘To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance.’ ”

Below is the full essay, “Semester with the Snowflakes,” followed by the NPR interview. You can read about Jimmy Hatch’s charity here.

Semester with the Snowflakes

At 52, I was accepted to Yale as a freshman. The students I met there surprised me.

by James Hatch

Gen.Medium.com

December 21, 2019

In May of 2019, I was accepted to the Eli Whitney student program at Yale University. At 52, I am the oldest freshman in the class of 2023. Before I was accepted, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had seen the infamous YouTube video of students screaming at a faculty member. I had seen the news stories regarding the admissions scandal and that Yale was included in that unfortunate business. I had also heard the students at Yale referred to as “snowflakes” in various social media dumpsters and occasionally I’d seen references to Ivy League students as snowflakes in a few news sources.

I should give a bit of background information. I was an unimpressive and difficult student in public schools. I joined the military at 17 and spent close to 26 years in the US Navy. I was assigned for 22 of those years to Naval Special Warfare Commands. I went through SEAL training twice, quit the first time and barely made it the second time. I did multiple deployments and was wounded in combat in 2009 on a mission to rescue an American hostage.

Every single day I went to work with much better humans than myself. I was brought to a higher level of existence because the standards were high and one needed to earn their slot, their membership in the unit. This wasn’t a one-time deal. Every time you showed up for work, you needed to prove your worth.

The vetting process is difficult and the percentage of those who try out for special operations units and make it through the screening is very low.

In an odd parallel, I feel, in spite of my short time here, the same about Yale.

After receiving my acceptance email and returning to consciousness, I decided to move to Connecticut and do my best in this new environment. Many people have asked me why I want to attend college at 52, and why at an Ivy League institution like Yale? I could have easily stayed in Virginia and attended a community college close to my home. Well, based on my upbringing in the military, I associated a difficult vetting process with quality and opportunity. I was correct in that guess. More importantly, I simply want to be a better human being. I feel like getting a world-class education at an amazing institution like Yale will help me reach that goal. Are there other places to get a great education? Of course, but I chose Yale.

My first class of the semester was absolutely terrifying. I don’t know if it was for the kids in my class, but it damn sure was for me. It was a literature seminar with the amazing Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, Professor David Quint. He is an amazing human in that he has dedicated his life to literature, and he knows what he is talking about. The discussion was centered around the Iliad. I had read a bit of the Iliad in the middle part of my military career and decidedly didn’t get it. Listening to Professor Quint demonstrated exactly how much I didn’t “get it.”

The other students looked like children to me. Hell, they are children, but when they speak, and some of them speak English as their second language, they sound like very well-spoken adults. My Navy-issued graduate degree in cussing wasn’t going to help me out here. These young students had a good grasp of the literature and although they lacked much experience to bounce it off of, they were certainly “all in” on trying to figure out its underlying meaning.

At one point I said, “Hey, I’m just an old guy sitting here with a bunch of smart people, but I think ...” And they all smiled, some of them nervously because I was essentially an alien. I was an old dude with tattoos all over his arms and a Dutch Shepherd service dog, brandishing a subdued American flag patch on her harness, sitting next to me. Professor Quint later approached me and said, “Hey, don’t downplay your intelligence. You are smart as well.”

I thought, I’ve got him fooled! Turns out I didn’t fool him at all when I turned in my first paper, but that is another story for another time.

After a few classes, I started to get to know some of my classmates. They are all compelling humans who, in spite of their youth, are quite serious about getting things done.

One young woman made a very big impact on me. She approached me after class one day and said, “I am really glad I can be here at Yale and be in class with you. My grandfather came to Yale and when WWII started, he left for the Navy and flew planes in the Pacific theater. After he came home, he came back to Yale, but he couldn’t finish. He locked himself in his room and drank and eventually had to leave, so I feel like I am helping him finish here at Yale and I’m doing it with a veteran, you.”

I was surprised and quite emotional. Exceptionally emotional. She went on: “I can send you a photo of him!” and I told her I would love one. That evening she sent me this photo of her grandfather.

I used to read stories about men like him and they are heroes to me. Clearly her grandfather is a hero to her as well, and she is going to make him quite proud. This connection with a WWII vet through his amazing granddaughter is a gift. One of many I receive on an almost daily basis in this amazing institution. I think it’s worth taking a moment here and acknowledging that this thing we now call “PTSD” has always been around. Some of us veterans escape it while others, like me and likely this gent in the airplane, felt the sting of it.

One day in another lit class, I brought up a book I’d read a long time ago called “Taxi Driver Wisdom” by Risa Mickenberg, Joanne Dugan, and Brian Lee Hughes.

After that class a couple of the students approached me and explained that their dads were cabbies when they first came to the United States, and that their fathers had told them that the things they sometimes heard from people in their cabs were amazing.

Think about that for a second. These students are first -generation Americans. Their fathers immigrated to this country and started out by being taxi drivers. Now their children are attending Yale University. I’m a patriotic man and those are the stories that help me understand how, in spite of the seemingly endless stream of negativity surrounding it, the American Dream is still alive and kicking. It makes my heart sing every time I see those kids.

Let me address this “snowflake” thing. According to the Urban Dictionary, a “snowflake” is a “term for someone that thinks they are unique and special, but really are not. It gained popularity after the movie Fight Club from the quote ‘You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.’ ”

I hear the term occasionally from buddies of mine whom I love. They say things like, “How are things up there with the liberal snowflakes?”

Let me assure you, I have not met one kid who fits that description. None of the kids I’ve met seem to think that they are “special” any more than any other 18–22-year-old. These kids work their asses off. I have asked a couple of them to help me with my writing. One young woman volunteered to help me by proof-reading my “prose” and, for the record, I believe she will be the President someday. I recently listened while one of my closer pals, a kid from Portland, Oregon, talked to me about the beauty of this insane mathematics problem set he is working on. There is a young man in our group who grew up in Alaska working on fishing boats from a young age and who plays the cello. There is an exceptional young woman from Chicago who wrote a piece for the Yale Daily News expressing the importance of public demonstrations in light of a recent police shooting. She and I are polar opposites. I am the “patriarchy” at first glance, and she is a young black woman who is keen on public protests. Not the type of soul I generally find myself in conversation with. We come from different worlds and yet we both read classic works with open hearts and minds.

We recently met with a prominent writer from a think tank who is researching the state of the humanities in the university setting. There were four of us students: two young men, the young woman from Chicago, and me, the old guy. As the younger students started to express their thoughts, the young woman (truly a unicorn of a human) used the word “safe space” and it hit me forcefully. I come from a place where when I hear that term, I roll my eyes into the back of my vacant skull and laugh from the bottom of my potbelly. This time, I was literally in shock. It hit me that what I thought a “safe space” meant, was not accurate. This young woman, the one who used the phrase, isn’t scared of anything. She is a life-force of goodness and strength. She doesn’t need anyone to provide a comfortable environment for her. What she meant by “safe space” was that she was happy to be in an environment where difficult subjects can be discussed openly, without the risk of disrespect or harsh judgment. This works both ways. What I mean is, this young woman was comfortable, in this university setting, wrestling with things like the Aristotelian idea of some humans being born as “natural slaves.” She was quite comfortable in that space. The question was, how comfortable was the 52-year-old white guy in that discussion? Did it make me uncomfortable? Yes. I’m grateful for the discomfort. Thinking about things I don’t understand or have, for most of my life, written off, is a good thing.

Being uncomfortable is KEY in this world of ours. Not altogether different from the world of special operations, where the work needs to be done, regardless of weather or personal feelings. The climate in this educational institution is one where most students understand that there HAS to be a place where people can assault ideas openly and discuss them vigorously and respectfully in order to improve the state of humanity. I’ll call that a “safe space” and I’m glad those places exist.

Here in the “Directed Studies” program, instead of “tuning in” to our favorite self-confirming “news” source, we are given a timeless text with heavy ideas and then we throw them out on the floor and discuss them with people who have, as I mentioned earlier, made these works and their meaning, their vocation.

In my opinion, the real snowflakes are the people who are afraid of that situation. The poor souls who never take the opportunity to discuss ideas in a group of people who will very likely respectfully disagree with them. I challenge any of you hyper-opinionated zealots out there to actually sit down with a group of people who disagree with you and be open to having your mind changed. I’m not talking about submitting your deeply held beliefs to your twitter/facebook/instagram feeds for agreement from those who “follow” you. That unreal “safe space” where the accountability for one’s words is essentially null. I have sure had my mind changed here at Yale. To me there is no dishonor in being wrong and learning. There is dishonor in willful ignorance and there is dishonor in disrespect.

On Veteran’s Day, there was a great scene on Cross Campus. A bunch of American flags had been placed there and I stopped on my morning walk to class and took photos of my dog in front of them and sent them to my friends. Later at some point during the day, a young student placed a glove with red paint on it on one of the flags as she wanted to demonstrate her displeasure with something … I’m not quite sure what.

That same afternoon, some of my fellow students from “Directed Studies,” after a lecture, gave me this:

It is a card thanking me for my service to our nation. I was humbled and amazed.

These hardworking kids are very kind and thoughtful. A far cry from the picture that is often painted of them.

One of my professors, a Professor of Philosophy, told me once “a good leader is a bridge builder.” Professor David Charles is a man who has been teaching bright young people, and some slow and old ones like me, the most difficult subject for me, at Oxford and now Yale. He’s been doing this for over 30 years. He is extremely humble and very kind, in addition to being brilliant. I’m motivated by his words and I want to build bridges and lead, in some small way, a new conversation where we stop pointing out the perceived differences in each other, or this group vs that group, and start pointing out similarities. We don’t need more condescending friction in humanity. We need less. One step in the direction of less societal friction is to seek commonalities. Another step, and one that is sorely needed, is respect.

Now before you think I’m preaching, please know that I come from a place where I was distinctly the opposite of this ideal. I looked for reasons to disregard the opinions of those I didn’t respect. I discounted the ideas of people I felt like hadn’t earned the right to share what was in their mind. Particularly when it came to national security issues, I felt that if you hadn’t taken a gun into combat, I didn’t give a damn what your opinion was.

I’d like to count this as my first brick in attempting to build a bridge between the people here at Yale and those like me before I arrived here. We need everyone who gives a damn about this American experiment to contribute and make it succeed. We humans have much more in common than we have different. Thanks, Yale, for helping me to become an aspiring bridge-builder at the age of 52.

In our welcome speech at the beginning of this semester, with all of us freshmen sitting in Woolsey Hall, me sitting next to another veteran, one who’d served in the 82nd Airborne, President Salovey said:

“There is so much we do not know. Let us embrace, together, our humility — our willingness to admit what we have yet to discover. After all, if you knew all the answers, you would not need Yale. And if humanity knew all the answers, the world would not need Yale.”

Now back to that bridge. I need to figure out how to actually build one. Good thing I’ve found a place where I can get help. If this place is peopled by “snowflakes” I’m proudly one of them. I’m a snowflake with a purple heart.

Peace.


NPR Interview

Heard on "All Things Considered"

September 4, 2019

Click on the "Play" button below to hear the 8-minute interview, and read the transcript below that.


Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Our next guest is 52 years old, a former Navy SEAL and a member of the incoming freshman class at Yale. James Hatch is heading to college after more than a quarter century in uniform. His military career ended after he was badly wounded serving in the mission to find Bowe Bergdahl, the Army sergeant who deserted his post in Afghanistan.

Hatch is attending as an Eli Whitney scholar - that's a program for nontraditional students - and he joins me now from New Haven.

Hi, there.

JAMES HATCH: Hi, Mary Louise. Thanks for having me on.

KELLY: Glad to have you on. How are these first few days going?

HATCH: Excellent. Overwhelmingly good.

KELLY: What are you planning to focus on as your major?

HATCH: I really enjoy the humanities. And I really feel like there's a place for it today. I know that STEM is kind of the trend, and I get it. But I also believe there's a place, especially in, you know, public policy and things like that, for the humanities - a little bit of history and philosophy and, of course, literature and all that.

KELLY: I guess it's a related but somewhat different question from what are you planning to study, which is what do you want to learn?

HATCH: Well, simply put, I just want to be a better human. And I'd also enjoy being able to contribute into conversations where people in power are deciding to send other people's kids to war. So I think with my background in the military as a SEAL and the special operations community and then an undergraduate degree from a university like Yale would maybe open some doors for me to be able to sit in on those discussions before we start making choices rashly to send people into wars.

KELLY: I mean, I hear from speaking to you love of learning. Why did you choose to go down a military path and not go to college at a more traditional age, when you were 18?

HATCH: You know, college wasn't really - I didn't like school at all. And I didn't want anything to do with it, truthfully. And I joined the military, you know, the day I turned 17 and got the heck out of there.

But after I got in the military and I met people who I considered to be, you know, smart and I started reading things, you know, I just - it kind of took off. I caught fire a little bit. But I read things that I truthfully didn't, you know, understand, but I got the gist that they're really important. And so now I actually get to read them, and then I have to be responsible for telling people what's in them. And that's a whole different world.

KELLY: I saw that you told the Yale newspaper that starting as an undergrad scares the hell out of you. And I read it, and I thought this is a guy who's helicoptered into combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why does Yale feel scary?

HATCH: Yale is scary because it's an - you know, similar to the SEAL teams, you know, there's a significant vetting process that goes into getting here. And so when, in fact, you are actually let through the door, which I was shockingly, then you have to confront the fact that OK, you asked for this, and here it comes.

And so truthfully, my first class, I was 10 minutes into it, and it was a seminar class. We were having a discussion. And I'm sitting there was essentially, you know, 13 other teenagers and the instructor, who - I'm probably the same age, maybe a little older than my instructor. And I thought man, I really have no business being here. But then, you know, things progressed, and I could actually contribute. It's just - it's a very - it's an elite organization. Amateur hour is over.

KELLY: Yeah. Although as you note, you were used to that from your, you know, two-plus decades in military service - showing up, doing the work.

HATCH: That's what I keep telling myself.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: And at least they don't make you, I don't know, drop and do push-ups if you don't get the problems set it on time.

HATCH: Right, no push-ups, and nobody's really yelling yet. And that actually is a bit uncomfortable. I'd rather just get yelled at.

KELLY: Yeah. To let people know just a little bit more of your story and how you got here, you needed 18 surgeries, I read, after you were wounded in that rescue mission in 2009. And I read - you've talked about how you suffered PTSD and drank too much and took drugs and even contemplated suicide. And I'm so happy to talk to you and that you're where you are now. And I also - it made me wonder how that informs how you carry yourself on campus as you move around and what your classmates might have to learn from you.

HATCH: You know, that's an - I'm really glad you asked that because, you know, based on my background, you're either an asset, or you're a liability. You're bringing something to your family, to your community, to your classmates, to your team, or you're kind of taking away from it. So I'm constantly thinking, you know, what can I bring.

And I think, you know, people talk a lot about mental health. And so you mentioned the 18 surgeries. And that's a significant amount of surgeries, but I actually spent more time in psychiatric hospitals than I did in medical hospitals. I think what I feel like I can, you know, bring here is that, you know, we need take care of one another. You know, people talk a lot about mental health resources, but the thing that helped me get to the point where I can, you know, be on the phone with you talking about being a freshman at Yale is that my friends, they were OK enduring the discomfort of getting in my face and saying hey man, you need to get help. We don't know how to help you, but we can get you across that bridge to those resources.

And so at some point, if there are people, students or whomever who are having, you know, troubles, maybe I can help them cross that bridge as well, too. And so I kind of keep that in the back of my head while I'm crushing through Herodotus trying to figure it out.

KELLY: (Laughter) I hate to laugh. You're bringing back bad memories of crashing through Herodotus.

HATCH: Yeah.

KELLY: I mean, what you're describing is fascinating. You're saying you've got to show up; you've got to do the work. These are lessons you've learned. But you also have to figure out none of us are going to make this on our own. You've got to ask for help.

HATCH: Only every day - you know, that's the beauty of the lessons that I have is you don't really get anywhere. I didn't get to sit here and talk to you because I just had this - you know, people use the word resilience. That's a very individual trait. And so I kind of disagree with it. You know, I'm here because people helped me out, and I just want to carry that kind of message as I walk around.

KELLY: Yeah. Are you living in the dorms?

HATCH: I am not living in the dorms because I think the Yale faculty understand that as a 52-year-old guy, I go to bed about 9:30, and I get up really early. And the kids, unfortunately, they don't live by that schedule. So I've rented a small apartment above a garage, and it's great.

KELLY: Yeah. So what's - is there a big milestone coming up next in terms - do you have - I mean, I guess you don't even have your eye on midterms yet or anything. But what are you eyeing?

HATCH: Well, there is. Actually, there's a - I'm going to have a paper due next week, my first paper. And I'm hoping that they're OK with me doing it in crayon, but I doubt that that's going to be the case.

KELLY: You must have a laptop, come on.

HATCH: Oh, I do. But, you know, we have to write at our level, don't we?

KELLY: (Laughter) Well, I wish you luck on your paper and everything else that this first year has in store for you.

HATCH: Thanks. I'm on my way to a class right now. So thanks, Mary Louise. I really appreciate your time. And again, thanks for having me on.

KELLY: What class are you on the way to?

HATCH: Literature.

KELLY: Literature, all right; well, enjoy.

HATCH: We're going to discuss the "Iliad," which pisses me off, but I have to get through it.

KELLY: (Laughter) Why? Why's it piss you off?

HATCH: Because it makes - kind of it gives - I think it gives the reader an unrealistic view of war and honor and things like that. But, you know, I'm just figuring it out. So I think it's OK. I'm wrestling with it, as they like to say here. And the wrestling isn't really fun.

KELLY: Are you going to voice some of that? I would have loved to have heard...

HATCH: Yeah, yeah.

KELLY: ...That perspective in a seminar on the "Iliad."

HATCH: Yeah, I am. To their credit, you know, the faculty has been keen on that. You know, they ask me to, you know, add to the discussion. So I think that's maybe part of the reason that I'm here...

KELLY: Yeah.

HATCH: ...Is that I have lived some of these things, so...

KELLY: Well, have a good class. And...

HATCH: Thank you.

KELLY: ...It's been great to speak with you.

HATCH: Likewise. Take care.

KELLY:year-old freshman.