50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 37 It’s football season, and Navy football holds many memories for me. One of them involves a president. In the early 1950s, my father, Frank Andrews, was the commissioning commanding officer of the USS Barracuda (SSK-1), a small experimental anti-submarine warfare submarine. His engineering officer was a young Jimmy Carter. They shared a wardroom. In 1976, the bicentennial year, I campaigned for Carter while still in high school. I…
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Those Who Saw Us
Published July 20, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 28 In my earlier posts, I’ve written about some of the coaches and instructors I had at USNA. Let me round that out with a few more of the professors I remember, the civilian ones, the military ones, the ones who noticed there were women in the room and treated us with respect. I’ve blocked out every calculus and electrical instructor I ever had. Mercy, probably. More about…
Leave a CommentThe Quarter-Pounder Incident
Published July 6, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 26 An 18-year-old man requires roughly 600-1,000 more calories per day than an 18-year-old woman of the same activity level. The Naval Academy had not yet done this math in the mid-1970s. USNA served the Brigade, some 4,400 midshipmen, family style, averaging 3,500 to 4,200 calories a day. It was built for men who sustained heavy academic, military, and physical loads. The nutrition science of the era wasn’t…
Leave a CommentThe White Chit on the Door
Published May 11, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 19 On hospital corners, room inspections, and the note that stopped my heart — then filled it. Before I was anything else at the US Naval Academy, I was a steward of a small rectangle of space, my room. The room inspection chit taught me things I never would have thought to wonder about. How to make a bed with hospital corners. How to stow your gear left…
Leave a CommentJe Ne Comprends Pas Le Wiz
Published May 4, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 18 There are class ranks, and then there are rooms that don’t care about them. French class was one of those rooms. At the Naval Academy, class year is everything. It shapes how you walk, where you eat, and how you are addressed. I was a plebe.That word meant something, something loud and specific and constant. It meant you were at the bottom, and the bottom was a…
1 CommentThe Law I Couldn’t Keep
Published April 27, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 17 Plebe Summer tested everything I thought I knew about my body and my will. The academic year tested something else entirely. I was up before dawn for swim practice. Even after validating some courses, the math and science requirements were formidable. A roommate conflict added friction to the hours I was supposed to call rest. But none of that was the heaviest weight. The heaviest weight was…
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