There it is: the four italicized words at the end of the email.  Go Army.  Beat Navy.  It’s there like PS- don’t forget to pick the kids up at 3.  It’s an afterthought, and it’s everything.  It’s implied but too important to be ignored. 

I had the pleasure of receiving the email from West Point’s Superintendent.  Well it wasn’t to me.  Three-star generals don’t email me.  But I know people that they email, people in their charge, and when it’s not classified I will occasionally get one forwarded to me.  He signed off his email- Go Army.  Beat Navy.– like the tens of men that have preceded him as the head of West Point.  They have used that sign off for as long as there has been football.  Surely if Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee were around for a football game–and, I guess, if they had email–that would have been their sign off too.  Surely it was Eisenhower’s signoff.  No matter what rank he or she may achieve in life, there is little that is more important to a West Pointer than the Saturday in December when they play Navy.  The week before the game is unlike anything in college sports.  Cadets greet their superiors with “Go Army!  Beat Navy!” It’s a salutation and a salute.  It’s implied–but too important to be ignored. 

There are college rivalries that teams look forward to all season, the rivalries that make or break seasons, and then there is Army/Navy.  Once it was a championship-caliber game, but now in the lean years–because of the lean years–the game is even more important.  The Oregon/Oregon State rivalry has long had the audacity to call their game the Civil War; I wonder what Grant (West Point class of 1843) and Lee (West Point class of 1829) would think of that.  If football is a metaphor for war, what do we call it when actual soldiers are playing?    And therein lies the rub, it’s a game–a big game–but just a game nonetheless, and with what awaits them after graduation, how can a game compare to that?  It’s this dichotomy that turns commentators into rambling idiots.  It’s the don’t-think-of-an-elephant problem, you try to block it out of your mind, but that just makes it pop in there that much larger.  The game is so big why would you talk about anything else, but the desire to focus on the field makes every cadet’s future weigh even heavier on your mind.  Their future is what separates this game from Harvard/Yale, their future is what makes this game so big.  It’s implied, but too important to be ignored.

Today’s West Point cadet is that dichotomy.  The scholar and the warrior.  West Point is Forbes’ “Best College in America.”  It made the top because of the Ivy League education.  It also made it because the US Government foots the bill.  All it takes to repay the debt is a 5-year gauntlet through the sand.  But ask a West Pointer if it’s worth it and they won’t be able to say “Hell yeah!” fast enough.  They are a special breed, West Pointers.  They were Class Presidents and Valedictorians, and they are learning how to lead by taking orders.  Every time an order is barked at them, every time they have to wake up early to memorize the New York Times because they will need to recite and pontificate upon request, every time they memorize every meal they are going to have, every little thing they focus on, everything is a learning experience–the little things that are implied but the too important to be ignored. 

And a West Point football player has to be even more than that, they are forced to be two things at all times–an Army cadet and a West Point football player.  Don’t let the ads numb you to the fact that there is such thing as being “Army Strong.”  There is a mental and physical toughness that is required.  Sometimes that goes hand-in-hand with football–memorizing the New York Times before breakfast every day is pretty good practice for memorizing a playbook–but sometimes Army Strength prevents Football Strength (300-lb linemen would not last the running and jumping that West Point requires).  As a result, the offensive and defensive lines for West Point can only be described as ‘undersized.’  The University of Florida’s starting offensive linemen average 326 pounds, Navy’s line averages 286, Army’s averages 256.  Army football–made up of some of the toughest guys in the country–will always be underdogs.  The uphill battles, implied but too important to ignore.

When you walk West Point’s campus you are simultaneously struck by the history and the beauty.  Forts aren’t supposed to look this good.  But college campuses are.  And so again: the dichotomy.  You walk along the Hudson–walk because you’re a guest, if you were a cadet you would be running.  You see Constitution Island; you walk past the Firstie Club (the bar for 4^th year cadets, which along with the Cow Club is the only alcohol on campus).  You walk past statues of Eisenhower and McArthur, their 5 stars each prominently displayed.  These two statues, raised up to be giants, wearing one more star than any of today’s cadets will ever achieve, setting the bar higher than humanly possible, screaming at everyone that walks by them–they don’t make them like this anymore.  But spend two minutes with a cadet and you know that they make them pretty damn well today, too.  The tradition and history though is never far enough away, and so you watch them march.  Statues to your left, the modern solider to your right, fully-uniformed, walking, stiffly, across the Parade Field.  Any other campus would just call it the Quad.  Of course any other campus would have dozens of students lounging around on it.  Any other campus would acknowledge it’s just a large piece of pristine grass with four sets of bleachers on it.  Pristine doesn’t do it justice–I’m told it’s the 2^nd most expensive public lawn in the country, the first being the White House’s East Lawn.  But as you stand between the 5-star generals, the barracks/dorms behind you, the grass leading out to Trophy Point leading out to the Hudson leading out to Constitution Island, your eyes can’t help but drift out over the water, you become the lookout, scouting for an incoming armada like you would have done 200 years ago.  Your eyes drift back, back to the present, back to the lawn.  And there it is–the four bleachers.  Something’s not right with the bleachers.  You let your eyes drift back more, and like a magic eye puzzle your eyes relax and they see it.  Each bleacher spells out a word.  Four bleachers, four words, something implied but so important that it must be spelled out: Go Army Beat Navy.