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Tyler Gordy’s grades in high school were so bad even now he doesn’t want to say what his grade-point average was. Suffice it to say it was bad enough to generate a firm “Thanks, but no thanks” when, just back from a tour in Iraq, he applied to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The rejection wasn’t yet official, but Gordy figured that was it. A sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division at the time, “I had given up,” Gordy said. “They had said, ‘I don’t care who calls, he’s not getting into West Point.’” Famous last words.

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