Joe Oppold ’96 recently released the book That's a Great Haircut. Introduction: On June 29, 1992, I reported to the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York with a mullet. The longest part of it was already cut off and stashed somewhere back home in Waterloo, Iowa. I knew they were going to shave my head. They did it fast. Zip, zip, zip. It only took about forty-five seconds. There was no small talk with the barber, hell no. I’d had haircuts before, but that was my first great one. Those forty-five seconds marked the start of my push to meet the incredible academic, military, and physical rigors required of a cadet. In the four years I spent at West Point, I learned to live the hallowed words of Duty, Honor, and Country. I became a leader.
Four years later, I sat at Michie Stadium facing the Lusk Reservoir with our class valedictorian to my left and Steve Marshall, my roommate and the male athlete of the year, on my right. There I was—on top of the world, graduating in the top 5 percent of my class from the US Military Academy, and on my way to medical school. My family and friends from high school were there too. I was going to party because this was the best.
Two weeks later, on the night of June 18, I was at home in Waterloo, on leave, with the worst migraine you could ever imagine. It had gone on for days, leaving me bedridden from the intense pain. Finally, it got so bad that I woke Mom around three in the morning. She rushed me to the emergency room where I was diagnosed as having a cerebral aneurysm. I was loaded into an ambulance and taken to Mayo Clinic, St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. On June 24, before undergoing surgery at St. Mary’s, the staff of my surgeon, Dr. Piepgras, shaved my head before the sixteen-hour surgery ahead. That was my second great haircut. It signaled the beginning of the greatest challenge of my life. Read the full book introduction.