Alaska U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan nominated Wrangell High School senior Ben Houser to join the Merchant Marine Academy later this year. KSTK’s Colette Czarnecki met with Houser to learn about his interest in this branch of the U.S. Armed Forces and the process for getting nominated. He said it made sense for him to pursue it after growing up in Wrangell.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Ben Houser
My whole life, I’ve just lived on boats and fished with my dad. I built the boat in the shop. It just aligns well with all the things I do in my life and what I’m good at. So I thought I would try it out. I started the application process and fortunately, they chose me. So I did a panel interview with Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski’s interviewers.
How did you feel before and during the panel?
I was a little scared, and I just had to practice with my mom a little bit. We had questions like the ones we thought they would ask. We practiced those at home and did some interviewing, and then, really, when I got into the interview, I was like, ‘this is a lot less scary than I thought.’ One of the panel interviewers happened to be a wrestler, and so I could kind of connect with him, because I was in wrestling at the time. It was just really easy to talk to them. And they thought a lot of things, like they stopped the whole interview right in the middle just to talk about me building my boat in the shop, because they had never had anybody build a boat before.
Why do you want to go to this academy?
I just thought getting out of Wrangell and trying some new things would be good for me. In Wrangell if we don’t have the barge come to town for one week, we don’t have eggs or milk on our shelves, and fuel prices are a big thing that ships here help. And just having ships in Alaska in these rural communities all over the world, it’s important to have people that are running these ships and doing those things. So I kind of just want to be able to give back to all the small communities all over Alaska and the world, and I want to be able to do engineering and be on ships.
When do you find out?
You have the normal application part that you would do for any school, the essay, and then you have the congressional nominations, and then you have what’s called a CFA, which is a candidate fitness assessment. And I had to do push ups, pull ups, sit ups, run a mile and do all that stuff here in Wrangell with Mr. Brooks, shout out to him.
With all that, I sent that in, and then I put my congressional nomination in, and after I have all that, there’s still one more thing you have to do. The school sends all your information to a place called DODMerb (Department of Defense Medical Examination Review Board), and that’s like a medical facility for the military. Then they email me the medical place. Then I have to do their whole medical part. They send you a provider, you have to set up an appointment.
And since we live in Wrangell, we have to travel to Anchorage or Seattle or somewhere else to do that medical exam. And then once that medical exam is done, DODMerb checks that out and makes sure you’re physically healthy, or mentally or everything healthy to be able to work on and go to these schools. And then once they have all that, they send that back to the school, it’ll probably be about April.
You are a senior, is this the only school you applied to?
I applied to UAF, I applied to NAU (Northern Arizona University), and I applied to Montana, State, and I got accepted in all three.
Congratulations. What else do you hope to gain out of it, or experience with the academy?
With the academy, it’s really cool, it would be about a year at sea. I got 125 days at sea my junior year, and 225 my senior year. So that would involve being on ships, going all over the world, just traveling around, working and learning how to do things on ships. And that’s one thing I’d be excited for is just being able to see the world being on these ships. Also I’d be in New York going to school, so I’m just seeing a whole new everything and being able to experience new things. I just want to be able to learn the most I can, and I think this is a pretty good school to be able to learn a lot about engineering and ships, and I’m also getting a bachelor’s in science as well as getting my captain’s license.
And then you have to commit your time after the schooling. How much time?
So for five years, you’d be what’s called the naval recruit. And for six years, you have to uphold your credentials. You would have to work in some merchant marine area.
If you go to the academy, you’ll come out as an engineer. What would your title be?
You can either go the deck route, where that would be, like, say, if you went on a cruise ship in Wrangell you would be the captain, or you would be up in the fly bridge, doing Captainy stuff. Or you can go the engineering route, which means you’d be working on the engine and working on anything mechanical inside the boat, but you’re still the same level as the top people.You come out as an officer.
Do you know what kind of boat you would sail around the world with the academy?
I’m not 100% sure, but I’m fairly sure it’s a military type vessel.
Is there anything else you want to say?
I just encourage people to try hard things, and even if you’re scared at 17, 18 years old. I mean, anybody can do it. It’s just whether you want to really try or not.
