Forward Operating Base, Pasab, Afghanistan
For the 112th time in their illustrious history, Army and Navy—the cadets of West Point and the midshipmen of Annapolis—face off on the football field Saturday. For the 11th straight year, those on both sides know they are preparing for military service in a time of war.
Players on the field today represent a special breed of men. Where else will you find athletes who turned down college scholarships to attend institutions in which the first order of business is to endure "beast barracks" or "plebe summers," periods of basic training for incoming cadets and midshipmen that are so physically and psychologically demanding that big linemen have been known to lose 25 pounds in a couple of months? At service academies, football practice can be the least stressful part of an athlete's day.
The first Army-Navy game was played in 1890 on the parade field at West Point. As midshipmen traveled by train from Annapolis to West Point that late November day, they decided their team needed a mascot. The midshipmen chose the goat, the milk-producing animal of ships at sea—unlike cows, goats can withstand the sea's heavy rolls—and they acquired one from a farm in Highland Falls, just south of West Point. When they won that first game 24-0, the goat became the Naval Academy's permanent mascot. It took until 1899 for the Army to adopt the mule as its mascot.
In the early years, there were a number of gaps in the rivalry. Following Navy's win over Army in 1893, a Navy Rear Admiral and an Army Brigadier General got into a heated argument while drinking in a club in New York. They agreed to a duel, but there's no record of the duel having taken place, and no one was wounded or killed. Still, it was enough for the Secretary of War and Secretary of the Navy to bring the matter before President Grover Cleveland, who in a February 1894 cabinet meeting abolished Army-Navy football games, a ban that lasted until 1899.
The series was again called off during America's involvement in World War I, when the academies shortened their academic programs to three years from four and limited extracurricular activities such as sports. Since 1930, however, the games have continued without interruption, even during World War II. After Army prevailed in 1944, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur's troops were fighting in the Philippines, he sent a cable to the Army locker room reading: "We have stopped the war to celebrate your magnificent success."
Over the 112 contests, Navy leads the series 55 to 49 with 7 ties. This year's game will be played at FedEx Field, the home of the Washington Redskins, making it the 17th different site of the contest. Philadelphia stadiums usually play host—providing a midpoint between Annapolis and West Point—but sites as far-flung as the Rose Bowl and Yankee Stadium have also won the right to host the prestigious contest.
At the 2000 Army-Navy game, when I was a midshipman, I remember a veteran confined to a wheelchair wearing his campaign ribbons from the Vietnam War. I did not see the colors for either Army or Navy—only for the battles he had fought in and the awards he had won for personal sacrifice, including a Purple Heart. I remember thinking that the man wasn't concerned with who won the game that day; he was just proud to see men and women volunteering themselves for the cause of our nation's freedom.
I won't be at the game this year, but in recent days it has been very much on my mind. I write from Forward Operating Base Pasab, in southern Afghanistan, a couple of kilometers from Mullah Omar's White Mosque, where the Taliban movement began in 1994. Earlier today, returning in an Army Chinook helicopter from a recent operation, it occurred to me that after all those midshipmen-years of chanting "Go Navy, Beat Army," here I am gladly working with my West Point rivals.
I have a friend who served with great distinction as a Navy SEAL in the Iraq war. Mike Martin tells a story that during the Army-Navy game of his second-class year, he encountered a cadet of like stature and the two decided to exchange uniforms, agreeing to meet back at the spot at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Now dressed in a cadet uniform, my friend went to the front of the Navy section and, in the tradition of Benedict Arnold, led cheers for the midshipmen. Across the field he saw his counterpart being tossed around atop the corps of cadets, his cover flying through the air like a beach ball. He wondered how he would ever see his cover or uniform again.
Yet at the predetermined time, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, they met and got back in their own uniforms—their sense of honor and fraternity required it, he said.
So as much as we celebrate the game's current players and the rivalry's heroes—names like Joe Bellino, Doc Blanchard, Glenn Davis and Roger Staubach—we should also recognize the courage and toughness of those in uniform in the stands. Need proof? Just ask veterans of Ramadi, Fallujah, Helmand and Kunar.
Saturday, one of these great institutions will go home disappointed. But for these men and women, the real challenge—and danger—lies ahead. They face years when they will need to be statesmen, mediators, engineers—and warriors. Never has service academy education been more important.
May the best school win. The fact is, they already have.
Mr. Tomlinson, a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is serving on a Human Terrain Team with the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Army's 10th Mountain Division in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.