West Point: An Intimate Picture of the National Military Academy and of the Life of the CadetRichardson, Robert C. (Robert Charlwood)
History
West Point: An Intimate Picture of the National Military Academy and of the Life of the Cadet
Richardson, Robert C. (Robert Charlwood)
United States Military Academy
When a new class of cadets reports at West Point, it is composed of
men as diverse in appearance, in points of view, and in character as
the parts of the country from which they come. But after they have
been at the Academy for a couple of years a marked change occurs, and
by the time they are ready to graduate they have undergone a complete
metamorphosis. In some mysterious manner they seem to have been
leveled to a certain standard, like some scraggly hedge that has been
scrupulously trimmed by its painstaking guardian. The fat ones have
lost their extra pounds; the thin ones have made good their deficit;
the round-shouldered have straightened up, and the hollow-chested have
filled out. Instead of a heterogeneous looking lot of men, they give
the impression of having been made from the same die. And then too
there is a uniformity about their point of view. Whereas at entrance
their whole thought was colored by the life from which they came and
by what they hoped to be, once enrolled in the Corps, they quickly and
involuntarily have found themselves worshiping identical ideals--the
ideals of Duty, Honor, and Country. They have discovered at West Point
certain standards that have been approved by other men, and they have
gradually adopted them as their own. But the real stamp of West Point
appears in their faces. The imprint is evident wherever a group of the
cadets are gathered together, but it is never so apparent as at the
graduation ceremonies when the cadets individually mount the platform
to receive their diplomas. Then one can see a certain look in the
eye and a certain feeling of strength about the features that is the
same. It is the look of men who have accomplished something and of the
strength that comes from character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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