October 25, 2024 | By Jacob Sharpe (A27)

Rhett Anderson (A23), a current masters of professional studies candidate in homeland security and counterintelligence at Tulane University, is scheduled to commission with the United States Space Force in May 2026. But even after recently completing Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) training—a far cry from a St. John’s seminar—she affirms that her journey thus far wouldn’t have been as successful without an undergraduate education built on the Great Books. 

It is often said that the Johnnie finds St. John’s College, not the other way around. Applicants are drawn to its historic campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe in countless ways, whether by niche interests in texts from antiquity, the open-discussion format of classes, or the model of learning centered on the collaborative pursuit of knowledge. Most students, however, can point to an aspect of the St. John’s experience that grabbed their attention and persuaded them to stick around. For Anderson, it was an unusual endorsement from an alumnus, Barnabas Holleran (A18), that led her to Annapolis.

Being told that a St. John’s education is the most difficult yet rewarding experience one will ever face will stick with you—or at least it did for Anderson. According to Holleran, the curriculum was so rigorous he wanted to leave, but so compelling it forced him to stay. This sentiment inspired Anderson to apply and enroll. And though the initial adjustment to the reality of Johnnie life was a challenging one for her, the rewards she reaped couldn’t be greater.

“I meet people who went to other schools, ones I dreamed of going to, and [regarding] the quality of people that are produced, St. John’s speaks for itself,” she says. “[It] is probably one of the best schools in the United States, if not the [best].” But at first glance, Anderson’s career goals didn’t exactly correspond with the Program. St. John’s heavy emphasis on philosophy leads many alumni to a career in academia, but Anderson always had a military career in mind.

Rather than molding her career goals to her education, Anderson spent her four years in Annapolis discovering how her education applied to them. Not all Program texts are pertinent in the same way: some stand out as clear influences on modern belief systems, while others are predecessors of such ideas. Anderson believes the Program's greatest applicability to modernity lies not in concrete prescriptions but in the eternal relevance of its philosophic arguments. 

Texts that Anderson found particularly helpful for a career in the military include Locke’s Second Treatise on Government and Hobbes’ Leviathan. Ethics and themes such as consent of the governed are extremely pertinent within issues of national security today, where common questions include what the role of the state should be, where the rights of citizens should lie, and what repercussions could result from the state’s actions in fields less familiar than sea and land.

These questions are particularly important to Anderson, an upcoming φύλαξ—correction—Guardian in the United States Space Force. The Space Force is the youngest branch of the United States Military, but the name “Guardian” is inherited from the 1980s, when the motto of the Space Command (then belonging to the Air Force) was “Guardians of the High Frontier.” Despite this lofty name, Guardians’ responsibilities are closer to the ground and focus on satellite operations and homeland security. The “contemplation of the heavens,” which Johnnies are certainly more familiar with, is left for NASA.

In conversation with Anderson, the path from St. John’s College to the military is quite frequently travelled. In fact, when she began speaking with recruiters, Johnnies were brought up by name as an example of the inquisitive minds sought today. This is well-exhibited in classes at St. John’s: in many a seminar or tutorial there is the oft-feared practitioner of devil’s advocate, who flits about to look at the text from all perspectives, intent upon exhausting all possibilities. While occasionally tedious to other Johnnies, they may be the model candidate for the Space Force: on a novel front of warfare with few established precedents, triumph depends on whoever can come up with the best idea first. Just as Thucydides assessed the situation before the Peloponnesian War, the world is in an era where nations are perfecting their preparations and waterproofing their abstract flotillas. And when it comes to asking well-conceived questions and poking holes in flawed arguments, no one is better suited than a Johnnie. 

Regarding questions, Anderson pursued many during her time at St. John’s. Her senior essay, inspired by her Abenaki Nation, Irish-American, and French-Canadian heritage, used the program text Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire together with Dubliners by James Joyce and An Autohistory of the Abenaki Nation by Frederick Wiseman to explore post-colonial identity. Per her discoveries and beliefs, the post-colonial world and the current generation holds individual identity in great esteem. As an informer of opinions and establisher of worldview, identity has the potential to diversify the sphere of discussion’s idea pool, similar to how the diversity of opinion within the seminar room enriches the discussion.

Much unlike the wartime world of Herodotus, where one was either Persian or Greek, people today are acknowledged as wholes belonging to diverse backgrounds. Gone are the days of pure conformism and assimilation being the military’s norm. Describing the new face of the Space Force, Anderson asserts, “We are more. We think for ourselves...we are supposed to be thinkers, they want revolutionaries.” And what institution churns out revolutionary thinkers so reliably as St. John’s College?