COASTAL OBSERVER

Alex Mills and Tyler Fico were once boys growing up in Pawleys Island, playing tag football and drawing pictures of tanks, guns and soldiers.

Now they’re paving their own paths to become military officers.

Mills, a 2021 Lowcountry Preparatory School graduate, just received his degree in English from the U.S. Naval Academy. Fico graduated from Waccamaw High School in 2021 and received his degree in civil engineering this spring from the U.S. Military Academy.

The two graduates met through their parents, who became close friends at Precious Blood of Christ Catholic Church.

“We grew up going to youth group together,” Mills said. “We always kind of had an aptitude for military stuff.”

“Sometimes I’d bring a baseball bat and walk around the house playing Army soldier,” Fico added.

Fico said his parents, Neil and Becky, inspired him to pursue higher education. But his grandfather who served in the Navy inspired him to attend West Point.

“I knew that was definitely one of the things I wanted to do,” he said. “That was probably the best of both worlds.”

Mills’s grandfather, a Marine, would share stories with him. When he was in the fourth grade, Mills told his dad, James, that he wanted to be a Marine.

He’s working to become the first officer in his family.

“I thought it would be the best place to have the potential to be the best Marine that I could be,” Mills said.

The traditional Army-Navy rivalry never got in the way of their friendship. To Fico and Mills, it was another form of camaraderie.

“It’s cool to be able to compete against each other,” Fico said. “Sometimes I’d be like, ‘I think we’re going to work you on football this year.’”

“At the end of the day, we all know that we’re on the same team,” Mills added.

The two graduates didn’t get the summer breaks that other college students had. Their summers were full days of training, where Fico went to the woods for infantry tactics while Mills spent time aboard  ship.

Although training is different for each service, they both shadowed officers and explored other roles, such as aviation and artillery.

During one of his training sessions, Mills had the “once in a lifetime opportunity” to sail over 800 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s such a blessing,” he said. “That would never have been exposed to me otherwise.”

They had similar, rigorous schedules that started with workouts with their company at 5 a.m. They were “always doing something,” Mills said, whether it was eating, showering, training, doing homework or prepping uniforms and dorms for inspection.

“You go to bed as soon as you can and wake up and you do it again,” Mills said.

Fico said the key was keeping an accurate schedule. He was always thinking about ways to maximize his time and efforts while at West Point.

“It teaches you a lot of resilience. It teaches you a lot of time management skills,” Fico said. “It teaches you a lot of the stuff that you’re going to need to have as an officer. That is by design.”

At the academies, the midshipmen and cadets are scored not just on their academic record but their physical education and military science courses as well.

There are fitness tests at the end of each semester. “A lot of them, very difficult,” Fico said. “Honestly, were the hardest classes at West Point.”

“They’re trying to breed officers with integrity, that they uphold the highest standards and also do so in an honorable way without cutting corners,” Mills added.

Mills appreciated the perspective that the Naval Academy gave him. It also made him push himself mentally, physically and morally.

“I have friends from every state in the country. I have friends from every religious background and every political stance, every walk of life,” he said.

The most memorable moments for Fico include doing “things that you never do at a normal institution.” That includes riding in helicopters, going into a tank simulator and spending time on the base.

Fico appreciates his time at West Point, especially when he looks through the videos he took. However, he will remember Pawleys Island as his home.

“I was always drawn to come back here, to be able to come back and enjoy time with my family and my friends and get to talk to Alex about his experiences,” Fico said. “It’s always been really cool to share what I’ve been going through and to hear what he’s been going through and how similar and how different they may have been.”

Fico’s summer break will end July 17 when he reports to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for field artillery officer training. He will later go to Grafenwoehr, Germany, where he will be a rocket platoon leader and fire direction officer for the 41st Field Artillery Brigade.

Mills will report in August to the Marine Corps Basic School in Virginia for six months of officer training. He will then be assigned a military occupation specialty once he finishes.

The Catholic faith that brought them together as boys also had a role in their time at Annapolis and West Point.

“A lot of my home was within the church,” Mills said. “It also helped me grow as a person and grounded amidst trials in the academy. It was my relationship with God.”

“I’m just very grateful for having that backbone of people to rely on,” Fico added. “It made it a lot easier to get through some of the hardest parts at West Point.”