Monk Earns Military Excellence Award at Recruit Training Command

GREAT LAKES (NNS) – Seaman Jordan Monk graduated as the top Sailor from Recruit Training Command (RTC) Great Lakes, earning the Military Excellence Award (MEA) June 4, 2026.

Monk, 25, of New Bern, North Carolina, said the award belongs to more than just himself.

"Winning this award is such a great honor," Monk said. "I just wanted to be the best version of myself for my division each and every day. I wanted to do my part in contributing to our success — this award isn't for me, but for my whole division and everyone who helped along the way."

The Military Excellence Award is presented to the recruit who best demonstrates enthusiasm, devotion to duty, military bearing and teamwork throughout training. As part of the recognition, recipients receive a flag letter of commendation.

For Monk, the decision to enlist was a deliberate one, born from a period of self-reflection and a search for greater purpose.

"A large part of why I wanted to join the Navy was because of what the Navy stands for," Monk said. "Honor, courage and commitment are values that force you to look inward, to become more within yourself and inspire that same growth in someone else. I truly just wanted to serve in every way possible."

Monk graduated from Houston High School in Germantown, Tennessee before attending the University of Memphis, where he was part of the conference-winning team that defeated Penn State in 2019. He later transferred to Kentucky Wesleyan College, earning a bachelor's degree in graphic design. Before enlisting, he worked as a long-term substitute teacher at Westside High School in Jacksonville, Florida, where mentoring students pushed him toward leadership in ways he hadn't expected.

That experience of leading others would take on new shape at boot camp, where his RDCs, Chief Petty Officer Kellogg and Petty Officers Delos Santos and Chappell, provided a daily example of what showing up fully looked like.

"My RDCs motivated me through the way they showed up each and every day ready to work and give their best," Monk said. "They inspired me to find something within myself that I wouldn't have been able to find on my own. They showed me new possibilities of what I can be and who I can become."

The support of his family, including his wife Kiya, his parents Tim and Lynette, and his sister Kirsten, was equally important to him.

"None of this would have been possible without my family, my division and everyone who helped along the way," he said. "This award is as much theirs as it is mine."

The biggest challenge boot camp presented wasn't physical. It was internal.

"The hardest part of boot camp for me was seeing myself fully — to start leading my life and not just living it," Monk said. "It was an inward struggle to overcome the person I was and become a better version of myself for me and for the people around me."

Following graduation, Monk will remain at Great Lakes for Electronics Technician "A" school, where he will learn the basics of communications systems, satellite communication, transmitters, receivers and radar.

Training at RTC is approximately nine weeks long, and all enlistees in the U.S. Navy begin their careers at the command. More than 40,000 recruits train annually at the Navy's only boot camp.