Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Ryan Riley | Henry Maxwell poses for a photo with family heirloom dog tags, March 22, 2025. Maxwell...... read more read more
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It was January in Kitsap County, Washington – a cold day, in a cold region, during the coldest month – when a young Naval Academy applicant got the call he had been waiting for since he started the process many months prior.
Their swim team had just finished up another grueling practice in the pool and was transitioning to the “dry land” phase of their training – the humorously amphibian way swimmers refer to any other form of physical training besides actually being in the pool itself – when Henry Maxwell received a call from his member of congress.
“I looked at my phone because we had just gotten out of the pool and into the weight room and I was like ‘why is my congressman calling me?’ said Henry. “I was in the middle of a squat set at the time, so I stopped my music and told my coach that I needed to go outside to take a call.”
That was when he heard the words he had been anxiously awaiting and represented the pinnacle of his high school experience.
“You’ve been accepted to the Naval Academy.”
Like any good teammate, Henry ran back to the weight room to share a moment of exuberant celebration with his coach and friends, and, like any good son he called his parents who loudly cheered their son’s achievement. Then, like a good future naval officer, Henry got back to work, re-racked the weight on the bar, and set a personal record for his squat.
The sport of long-distance swimming is demanding, grueling, tedious, and oftentimes lonely. Other endurance sports like running and cycling share some characteristics with swimming – the long hours of laborious effort for diminishing returns as one improves – but swimming has its own unique brand of misery.
For starters, the swimmer has to overcome the mental barrier of jumping into a cold pool to even start practice. While a cyclist or a runner is able to adjust their layering so they can remain the optimal temperature, a swimmer dives into a pool where their level of comfort that day is determined by whomever dictates the temperature of the aquatic environment.
Additionally, the endurance swimmer must confront the day-to-day challenges of their practices largely separated from teammates. Save for a few breathless moments in between sets a swimmer is unable to communicate – the black line at the bottom of the pool their only companion. It takes a unique strength to thrive in such a demanding sport, a strength that is apparent when one first meets Henry. A strength that proved invaluable as he pursued admittance to one of the nation’s premier institutions.
“At a certain point swimming really becomes how much more you are willing to hurt than the person you’re swimming next to and that mindset is really what has helped me the most during the application process and also with the mental drain as well,” said Henry. “The drive to see the endpoint and visualize success and be willing to outwork everyone to get where you need and want to go.”
While Henry’s own interest and journey to the Naval Academy began as a teenager, the Maxwell family’s legacy of service stretches back generations. Henry’s great-grandfather, Henry Vincent Maxwell, served in World War II as a Seabee – the Navy’s mobile construction battalion units – spending time in Guadalcanal and Tulagi in the Solomon Islands.
His paternal grandfather, Dee Scott Maxwell, was an aviation electronics technician, serving aboard the now-decommissioned Midway-class aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea (CV 43) as a member of Attack Squadron (VA) 22. His maternal grandfather, Manuel “Manny” Adelmita Lababit originally joined the Navy as a steward, ultimately retiring as an illustrator draftsman first class. During his service Manny spent time aboard the first supercarrier USS Forestall (CVA 59), now decommissioned, and was one of the Sailors who bravely responded to the fire that erupted on the flight deck after a misfired rocket. Manny’s career would eventually bring him to Hawaii where we worked at U.S. Pacific Fleet headquarters creating the “Big Ships” that illustrated unit locations around the globe before the days of PowerPoint.
Henry’s father, Capt. Micah Maxwell, is himself a 1999 graduate of the Naval Academy and has had an extensive and diverse career notably serving as commanding officer of the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Buffalo (SSN 715) and Ohio-class guided-missile submarine USS Ohio (SSGN 726), and most recently as the chief of staff of Submarine Group 9.
“When Henry was in junior high school he set the goal of becoming a naval officer and attending the Naval Academy. He understood how rigorous the process would be and embraced it wholeheartedly. I instructed him on the path, but he did all the work,” said Henry’s father. “I am immensely proud of him for all the work and personal growth he has done since junior high to be ready for this step. I am also very proud of him for continuing the family’s naval tradition and I know my grandfather is looking down on his namesake with pride.”
For a person who had had spent his childhood and adolescence around the sea service, it’s difficult to parse exactly when he became aware that he too would pursue a similar path to his father, but he is positive it had something to do with the recent Michael Bay science-fiction action movie Transformers.
“I remember watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen after my dad had left on deployment and my mom saying that the reason he needed to leave was because he had to protect us from Megatron,” describes Henry. “That was the first time I thought about how cool it was to be in the Navy.”
As Henry approached high school he decided to turn that initial desire into action by joining the U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps to mature as a leader and foster a robust military-related skillset.
Henry’s decision proved fruitful, ultimately learning more about some of the Navy’s operational areas like aviation and submarines. He also participated in advanced trainings covering a diverse range of topics like lifeguarding, SCUBA diving, and master-at-arms training, all the while practicing peer leadership amongst his fellow cadets. After four years Henry is now a Sea Cadet chief petty officer – the highest rank available in the program – and is responsible for planning, training, and leading a group of more than 25 fellow cadets.
“I sought out the Sea Cadets because I was looking for ways to become more involved with the Navy and strengthen my acceptance chances to the Academy,” said Henry. “There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be the person and leader I am today without the opportunities afforded me by this program.”
His experiences in Sea Cadets and from growing up with a submariner parent aided directly in his application. Discussing the essays which were one small part of the admissions process, Henry recalls,” the first paragraph of my essay was talking about how I wanted to be the one guarding Megatron. I think the biggest thing for me was that the initial spark of interest came from seeing my dad get underway, but the continual push to serve and become an officer candidate was all on my own.”
He continued, “I spoke about family history and how my dad had gone to the Academy, but this wasn’t the main reason I wanted to go to the Academy. It was my personal desire to be among the best so I could learn from them and learn along with them what it means to be an officer in the Navy.”
A consistent refrain Henry expresses is his desire to improve his leadership skills over the next four years. Despite applying and being accepted to several other institutions – Virginia Tech and Idaho State among them – Henry knew from his time spent at a Naval Academy summer program that this was a special place that would be instrumental in developing him as a future naval officer.
“I felt that the Naval Academy was the best opportunity I had to be in a place where I was surrounded by exceptional leaders, and I could continue to refine my own leadership skills.”
Often referred to as a leadership laboratory, the Academy prides itself on being a place that takes raw material in the form of talented, hard-working young men and women and produces high-quality officers through a combination of stress, senior-leader mentorship, and academic rigor. Originally founded as the Naval School by former Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft the first class of midshipmen stepped foot on the Army post named Fort Severn in Annapolis, Maryland, on October 10, 1845. The inaugural cohort included 50 midshipmen and seven professors with a curriculum that included mathematics and navigation, gunnery and steam, chemistry, English, natural philosophy, and French. The Academy grew parallel with the U.S. Navy modernizing and expanding the Fleet, and the original 10-acres and 50 midshipmen soon became a brigade of 4,000 with modern granite buildings and state-of-the-art training facilities.
This summer Henry, with about one thousand other officer candidates, will take the oath of office in T- Court and join the long line of servant leaders that spent four years by the Severn. The traits he developed during the long hours spent refining his stroke, reworking his essays, or contemplating his leadership style within his Sea Cadet unit will serve him well as he begins his naval career.
In June he’ll be joining the ranks of King, Nimitz, Rickover, Puller, Carter, Lawrence, and numerous other leaders who have similarly walked the brick paths that connect academic buildings, marched in formation during the Maryland humidity, and were willing to dedicate their lives to service. Service that, in Henry’s own words means, “putting yourself forward because you’re able to help others who are unable to help themselves. It means volunteering your time and your capability to do something for someone else.”
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.31.2025 12:20 |
| Story ID: | 494053 |
| Location: | POULSBO, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 521 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Maxwell House: A Family Legacy of Naval Service Continues, by LT Zachary Anderson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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