Three Classmates-Turned-Naval Officers Share Their Stories

  • Alumni to Watch
Three Classmates-Turned-Naval Officers Share Their Stories
Ravenscroft Communications

Three friends — Temple Sloan ’11, Baker Mills ’11 and John Haslett ’11 — discuss the paths each took to joining the Navy and how Ravenscroft helped get them there.

Three friends — Temple Sloan ’11, Baker Mills ’11 and John Haslett ’11 — discuss the paths each took to joining the Navy and how Ravenscroft helped get them there.

Describe the path that brought you to the Navy and what your role is today.

 

Temple Sloan ’11: Fairly early on at Ravenscroft, I knew that I wanted to join the Navy. I initially was exposed to the Navy by reading a variety of military books. I distinctly remember talking with Baker and John about all of us wanting to serve in our respective ways. John’s dad went to the Air Force Academy and opened the world of the service academies to me. During our junior year John, Baker and I visited [the Naval Academy in] Annapolis, and from that moment I was sold.

I just left active duty in the fall of 2022 following my last deployment and am now serving as a Platoon Commander in the Navy Reserve. I moved back to Raleigh this fall and am going to business school at Duke and working with my family.


Baker Mills ’11: I joined the Navy after being accepted to medical school and awarded a scholarship from the U.S. Navy Health Professions Scholarship Program. This is a scholarship offered to students attending a U.S. medical school that gives them the opportunity to join the military as a commissioned officer and attend medical school on a full ride in exchange for a service commitment. As part of my commitment, I spent every summer of medical school either attending Officer Development School or training at a naval hospital. I was later afforded the opportunity to defer my service commitment to complete my orthopedic surgery residency training at the Duke University Medical Center. After completing five years of surgical training, I will take everything I have learned and bring it to the Navy while serving as an orthopedic surgeon.


John Haslett ’11: Unlike the nerds highly qualified students that attend the Naval Academy to obtain their commission, I commissioned into the Navy by attending Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, after graduating from Ole Miss. It’s a three-month course designed to take a civilian and train them in everything they need to know in order to become your basic military officer before heading on to more advanced training in their specific job. For me, that was flight school. After a few years in training I earned my Wings of Gold and was assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron 140, flying the EA-18G Growler out of Whidbey Island, Washington. The Growler is a modified F/A-18F equipped with weapons and jamming pods to protect friendly forces by kinetically and non-kinetically suppressing or destroying enemy air defense systems.

LT John “EarBud” Haslett, Electronic Attack Squadron 140

Temple Sloan ’11

Baker Mills ’11

John Haslett ’11