The Army Navy game

a couple of questions

Spa Creek was utterly sublime this morning.

I confess my attention is not entirely on all of you this afternoon as I am also watching the Army-Navy game. That is one of two important events in town today; the second is the Eastport Yacht Club ‘Parade of Lights’ this evening from 6-8. The Eastport Club sponsors an event for yacht owners decorating with holiday lights, then sailing up and down our Spa Creek to show off their creativity. We have only been here for five of these galas but some owners seem to have either a sense of humour or a different interpretation of a desired outcome than I would. this can be a rather amusing event but is usually reds, greens, and whites done artfully. So, big goings on in the greater Annapolis area!

Readers won’t be surprised I support Navy since we had tickets to game for years. Plus, you are well aware my husband is a Navy veteran, though not an Academy graduate. But, the whole of the game is simply enjoyable with two exceptions. One is a personal gripe while the other is a serious point that seems so obvious, if painful, to these two storied programs. Let me start with the latter.

Why one earth are Navy and Army, if not Air Force, still playing Division One teams? When I was a student at Notre Dame in a universe far far far away, Navy was in the midst of a losing streak ultimately extending between 1964 and 2006. This, I remind any of you who managed to forget, included the ‘Faustian Era’, as I call it, when the Irish lost to pretty much any team that showed up on a field with them. The exception to the ‘pretty much’ was that Notre Dame beat Navy.

The only time I ever got free tickets to a Notre Dame game, my son and I absolutely froze when Navy came tantalisingly close but still lost in South Bend. He had a great time at age 10: he was so enthralled he never complained about the bitter cold at all, wanted to stay through every single second, and only regretted that he thought I was disappointed with the outcome (in truth, I was simply thankful it was over so I could get somewhere warmer). But, Navy lost.

The 2007 game, which my husband attended, saw Navy break the 43 year losing streak but it’s been pretty clear that Navy is not in recruiting players who can compete with most Division One teams. They shouldn’t worry about it. The Academy has a completely different trajectory for its players. You and I—and the National Command Authority—expect a completely different trajectory for these Navy players, along with those at the other service academies.

The conference where Navy plays—and Army joins next year—is the American Athletic Conference with a mixture of teams ranging from Temple in Philadelphia to University of Texas at San Antonio to University of Alabama Birmingham (like Temple, far better known in basketball circles) and several other minor sport programs.

But Navy, Army, and Air Force continue playing outside their conferences as well as if they seriously can compete with the aforementioned Notre Dame and other true powerhouse football programs. Simply walking around Navy Marine Corps Stadium as the teams do their warmups shows that Navy players are significantly smaller and slower than the majority of teams they play, much less these huge schools. And, Navy students are not there for ‘athletic scholarships’: graduates of the academies are obligated, if they have studied for four years, to pay back you and me the taxpayer with service as a commissioned officer in one of the services.

I realise this idea of playing teams well beyond their recruiting level is not a cosmic thing, compared with so many issues the Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Army face daily, but this does reflect on some of the foci the academies are developing. The schools seem determined to highlight their athletes much as Saban does in Tuscaloosa or at Southern Cal. Athletes are glorified for being athletes rather than for being officer candidates in their chosen service. That focus on the winning and losing a 60 minute football game diverts attention from why someone studies at the institutions. It can be otherwise as the demand to right the ship by improving Navy’s football record is a constant public relations topic.

Additionally, the Academies—as public-funded institutions—chase millions of dollars off the sponsorship under banners of trivialisation such as Army-Navy as ‘America’s game’, eating ‘America’s cookie’, and asking you to buy ‘America’s this and that’ for some product. I forget which company, sponsoring this game, is America’s toilet paper but I am sure I’ll see it later this afternoon.

CBS, today’s network, spotlighting these ‘patriotic’ products and the heart-warming individual histories, rather than teamwork which is the essence of military operations, seems counterproductive to the messages the academies are supposedly imparting to the next generation of officers. The pursuit of looking like Ohio State when the academies are anything but Ohio State, in so many ways, is a fool’s errand. (Yes, I feel strongly about this).

Yes, we had football tickets for many years here at Navy Marine Corps Stadium. Yes, we enjoyed the games (except the music at the volume that Vlad the Impaler must have heard it in Kremlin. I wonder about the effect on the many young kids sitting on the hill below the blasting speakers for hours, considering I could hear the music at full volume with earplugs). Sure, the kickoff music was from Top Gun which is a great soundtrack but also is a tale of an individual Naval aviator giving ‘the system’ the proverbial finger. I wonder if people ever really think about the implications of Tom Cruise’s character for aspiring officers? Yes, the fly overs are cool. But the messaging and focus of the academy’s mission seemed utterly secondary, if not counterproductive. I hate saying it but it strikes me as wishful thinking to see it otherwise.

Which takes me to the second objection: cheerleaders. I could write about this for twenty hours but will try brevity. Cheerleaders, particularly women dressed in attire to highlight their desirability as sexual objects, are fine at a school where everyone is allegedly equal as a student. That is not the case at the academies. One of the key points of the armed forces still emphasised by the four year academy undergraduate education is military discipline and chain of command with officer peers and the enlisted who must respect an officer for the system to function.

The number of sexual assaults on women students reported within the services, much less the academies, over any given year is startlingly high, providing evidence that chain of command dicta do not always win out over human desire to assert power. In 2022, the Congressionally-mandated annual Defense Department Report on sexual assault deemed the increase in reported cases as ‘tragic’ with overall numbers up 13% that year alone.

Sexual assault is a hideous behaviour with complex causes but I am pretty confident calling our a major dynamic is power (stonger over weaker) while a second one is objectification of women as a measure of their value. Alcohol, which I am perversely amused to say appears ok for students to consume off campus based on what I read, ought to be off limits to every single student under 21 because that is the law in every state in the Union, including little old Maryland. Yet, drunken engagements seem too often to spiral from perhaps consensual to allegation of rape. Tailgate parties have a role in underage Midshipmen—of both genders—consuming alcohol with no widely discussed penalty. Does this contribute to an order and discipline problem by wearing down respectful behaviour?

Cheerleading in and of itself is fine if someone wants to participate. My concern is how it evolves for a female navy officer. How does her behaviour with alcohol square with her responsibilities as a Midshipman, especially if she is a cheerleader? How does a woman go from being a cheerleader to a respected officer when her prior reputation within her year group is likely to rely greatly on her role as a cheerleader? Is she seen as something lesser than her male peers? Do we believe enlisted don’t see photographs like everyone else? Seriously? Cheerleading may be a great activity in high school but how can it not have deleterious effects on a female officer’s career in any of the services?

I realise my concerns sound overblown but I have seen women anticipate respect without understanding there is an element of earning that respect. Respect is not merely the guaranteed through positional authority. There are still some at the Academies who believe the schools should be a male-only experience. Women must accept and recognise they will likely face higher scrutiny than their male colleagues; sadly, wishing things were otherwise is fantasy at this point in our country.

I am enjoying the game, despite my deep concerns. The Mids are not taking it to the Black Knights as I might hope, making a number of errors on the field. On the other hand, they look pretty equal in some ways so Navy has a chance to come back. In the end, it’s a game. Twenty years from now the players will remember their experience; will they be in the midst of a conflict where the Army Navy game provides comfort for a past they left behind?

I am certain many of you disagree with my concerns. That is to be expected. Our military, especially an all-volunteer force, needs be one all of us understand better. The players at this game today are part of the Defense Department’s attempts to bring the military into people’s living rooms but I wish we could be sure the focus would endure longer than the remaining second half of this game. Please send me any thoughts you have on my column or the Academies or anything else today.

I appreciate your time reading this. I especially thank those of you who subscribe. Please circulate this column if you find it worth discussion with others.

Go Navy! Be well, all, and be safe.

Heather Mongilio, ‘Latest Military Sexual Assault Report Shows ‘Tragic’ Rise in Cases, Pentagon Officials Say’, usni.org, 1 September 2022, retrieved at https://news.usni.org/2022/09/01/latest-military-sexual-assault-report-shows-tragic-rise-in-cases-pentagon-officials-say