Not every life purports a North Star of instruction as experienced at a small southern military college. This is not to say that life’s most admired guidelines cannot be engaged elsewhere. However, at The Citadel, there is a definitive and measured four-year avenue to frame the promise of a life well lived. Typically, an eighteen-year-old enters and emerges as a well-rounded, goal-oriented, and ethically-adept twenty-two-year-old. The unique and regimented environment sets the course.

In this volume, author W. Thomas McQueeney investigates, explores, and charts the other-than-classroom characteristics that become the toolbox of the graduate. This impressive array of values engenders a lifelong ideal in areas to include time management, societal interaction, volunteerism, professional priorities, spirituality, teamwork, leadership, determination, and capacity - just to name a few.

I’ve found that so many graduates from my era have taken what’s been ingrained and turned their lives into exemplary stories of production and perseverance, McQueeney stated. And by staying engaged at the college, it became clear to me that The Citadel experience has remained as a foundation of multi-faceted successes for so many lives - seen in the military, the corporate world, education, business, and especially in the various religious callings. That observation led me to the idea of cataloguing the full immersive experience so that those values are not only identified and reinforced but extolled.

This publication champions an experience focus with lessons that are universal and timeless. As a bonus, the book contains the author’s Citadel campus-scenery photography along with the ribald side of Citadel Life as expressed in the cartoons of Ray Mayer ‘74.