Feature
Courage under fire
by Matt Nippert
Being accepted for training at the elite US military academy of West Point means a cheap university education for teenagers from poor families. It also means a likely posting to fight in Iraq – and the chance of being killed.
Above Sean McBride’s desk is a small bookshelf with the titles arranged methodically, largest to smallest, left to right. On the far left is a fat binder called the Combined Arms Reference Book. This textbook lays out in detail what probably awaits McBride, an army cadet, in 2007 after he graduates from the US Military Academy at West Point, north of New York City.
Amid warnings about piano wire being used to decapitate soldiers riding on top of Jeeps in Iraq and the ingenious “donkey-cart rocket launcher” that rained missiles onto a military base, there’s advice on how to profile suicide bombers in cars.
Apparently, you can spot a bomb-bearing motorist because of their “aggressive or erratic driving”. But the book also lists behaviour that non-suicidal drivers engage in. One such characteristic is “aggressive or erratic driving (this is also common driving behaviour here)”. When this contradiction is pointed out to McBride, he chuckles and makes a crack about the notoriously chao-tic traffic in California, his home state.
“It sounds just like LA.”
Three years ago, on April 9, 2003, as McBride was close to finishing high school, Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad was toppled after the US invasion. He had already been accepted into West Point.
“You know,” says McBride, of the invasion’s architects, “I wish they’d put a little more thought into their policy for what happened after the invasion.”
McBride, 21, who didn’t expect the war to grind on as long, or as viciously, as it has, considers himself “one of the more progressive cadets”. He says Berkeley, one of the more liberal institutions in the US, was on his college wishlist, but reality intervened. “My story is probably the same as a lot of people’s here. I come from a poorer family, and this is a good college.”
Out of the nearly 11,000 applicants last year only one in 10 was accepted, a figure comparable to the 9.1 percent acceptance rate of Ivy League giant Harvard. Harvard charges students more than $60,000 a year, but West Point offers a $360 monthly stipend and free tuition, room and board.
But there’s no such thing as a free education here. After graduation in mid-2007, McBride will hold the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and be locked into five years’ service before being offered the option of leaving. He has mixed thoughts about what will happen when that day comes. “I don’t really see myself as a career military man.”
Resigning as soon as the option becomes available is called “five and fly”. The number who opted out last year – nearly one in 10 – was the highest since the burst of patriotism following 9/11 boosted West Point applications and army retentions. Worryingly for the US armed forces, this isn’t the only figure that’s tracking badly. For the first time since 2001, the number of applications to West Point fell last year – by nine percent. Applications to Naval and Air Force academies were worse hit, declining 20 and 23 percent respectively.
Iraq and Afghanistan are the topics of much discussion at West Point, specifically the insurgencies that have cost more than 2100 American lives (including those of more than 30 West Point graduates) since President George Bush declared “mission accomplished” on May 2, 2003.
Cadets are kept well-informed about the political nuances and dangers through family members, veteran faculty and daily newspapers.
Despite the constant bad news, the amen-able McBride believes that his four years at West Point will have prepared him if he joins the estimated 70 percent of his classmates who are immediately shipped to war zones. “If I get sent there, I’ll be as ready as I can be,” he says. His mental preparation, though, only extends so far. “Well, if I get sent there for the first time, I’ll be ready. Maybe not the second or third time …”
How does West Point prepare soldiers? With a heady mix of history, tradition and discipline. Founded in 1802, the lush campus on the banks of the Hudson River is dotted with memorials of past conflicts and statues of noted graduates.
Framing the main entrance to the library are the two cannons that fired the first and last shots of the American Civil War. West Pointers died on both sides of that conflict. The memorial to these fallen soldiers has a centrepiece described by my cadet tour-guide as “the largest polished granite shaft in the world”. The stone spire is surrounded by yet more cannons.
Women were first admitted in 1976, and make up 15 percent of the corp. They take self-defence classes instead of the mandatory boxing, but otherwise experience the same deprivations as their male counterparts. The routine runs for six days a week, starting at 5.30am. First-year cadets, known as “Plebes”, are allowed off campus on the weekend only four times a year.
The lowest in the hierarchy, Plebes also have the early morning responsibilities of servicing the student barracks. Although they no longer scrub the toilets with toothbrushes (that’s done by civilian janitors with proper equipment), Plebes take out the laundry and trash, and perform the strange daily ritual known as “minutes”.
To the uninitiated, “minutes” sounds like pre-dawn religious chanting. From 6.30am, these fresh-faced youngsters, usually no older than 19, stand outside their rooms, stare at a digital clock and speak slowly in unison:
Attention all cadets,
Page 1 2 
