Word: zielinsky
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...look at Greg Zielinski--Z to just about everyone on post--and for a split second you wonder whether he is actually built out of some material other than flesh and blood. Everything about him shines--his nearly shaved head, every buckle and boot, his manner. His father says if Zielinski hadn't gone to West Point, he probably would have been president of a fraternity. He is pathologically social, both liked and looked up to by fellow cadets, especially those who bleed Army green. "Z?" they say. "He's huah," delivering the words with the appropriate Southern drawl--"heezoowah...
...officers in the department of military instruction puff up at the mention of his name. "Z--that's my guy," beams a broad-chested major. Another says, "Greg Zielinski is the kind of cadet that makes you love teaching here." For them, Zielinski has molded himself in the Army's image of the proto-officer: strong, blunt, earnest, demanding. Even with four years to shape cadets, West Point has mixed success installing their program of warrior ethic in teenagers from so many walks of life. So when they see Zielinski adopt it all so naturally--chin out, eyes front, shoulders...
Underneath the polish, however, Zielinski has his insecurities about where he came from and where he's headed. He came to West Point as a rebel. Growing up among the preppies of Fairfield, Conn., the brother of a Princeton-grad investment banker and a son of a media executive, he was drawn to military life because he wanted something more than just a good job. He originally had his heart set on going into the Navy to become a fighter pilot, but when he visited West Point, he fell in love with its emphasis on the basic relationship of leader...
More than anything else, Zielinski is looking for practice, not theory, and the West Point faculty is changing to meet that demand. If the typical college professor floats somewhere high above the real world, at West Point instructors are expected to bring the real world with them--not just in private but in public as well. In Iraq, generals admit that the captains and lieutenants often know more about how to combat the insurgency than they do. It is, they say, a platoon leader...
...Iraq invasion, had been brought to West Point to teach Fundamentals of Tactics. His easy ferocity inspires wide measures of terror and devotion among cadets. "I just hate that guy sometimes," says one, "but I would feel safest going into combat with him over my other instructors, definitely." To Zielinski, whose unit at Air Assault School had to withstand McKinney's withering inspection, the weakest instructors are the ones who act like your buddy. "When I see someone being tough with me, like Captain McKinney," he says, "I think it's a good thing. You only learn more that...