50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 29 After plebe summer, after a full academic year of being told exactly where to be and exactly what to do, and after climbing Herndon, the Navy hands you a ship and says, “Run it.” Not entirely. Not alone. But it felt close enough. A tension is worth naming before this story starts. Throughout the academic year, we trained alongside our male classmates: same classes, same formations, same…
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LCDR
Published July 27, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 25 Not every instructor is well remembered, or was well-suited to instruction at the Naval Academy. This one wasn’t, and he’s stayed with me for reasons that have nothing to do with fondness. Every midshipman, regardless of major, was trained in the math and science required of a shipboard engineer. That’s why, even as a political science major, I took enough of those courses to earn a Bachelor…
1 CommentThose Who Saw Us
Published July 20, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 24 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
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 what it is now, and sports teams got…
Leave a CommentLOUDER
Published May 18, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | On come-arounds, collapsing mid-song, and what happens when development and punishment share a room. Tucked inside the little book every plebe carried everywhere, Reef Points, our pocket-sized bible of professional knowledge, were the things we were expected to know cold. Ship terminology. Naval history. The chain of command. Customs and courtesies. Rates. You were tested on all of it. Formally, in class. Informally, in the passageway, where any upperclassman could…
Leave a CommentJe Ne Comprends Pas Le Wiz
Published May 4, 2026
50 Stories for 50 Years | #14 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 place…
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