Military Academy

WASHINGTON -- Treatment of the torture issue during the second Republican presidential debate illustrates what's great and what can go terribly wrong with these presidential face-offs. Fox News' Brit Hume spelled out a hypothetical scenario worthy of Fox TV's Jack Bauer thriller, 24. His plot involved suicide bombers simultaneously attacking shopping malls, captured suspects being taken to the military's detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and U.S. intelligence agents believing that there are plans for an even larger attack.

Six months after his arrival at the helm of the U.S. Naval Academy, Vice Adm. John R. Ryan announced yesterday an ambitious plan to begin seeking private donations for new athletic facilities and other improvements.The money would pay for a new soccer field, a tennis center, upgrades at the sailing center, and possibly a parking garage and some academic improvements. The donations would free up federal funds for more than $300 million in needed repairs and modernizations, especially at academic buildings.

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. - Reveille sounds at 0600 hours, echoing across the lush, leafy campus of Valley Forge Military Academy, heralding a new dawn for the 800 cadets here and for military schools across America.Spurned in the anti-military atmosphere of the Vietnam War, military schools dwindled from nearly 600 in the late 1950s to just 41 by the time U.S. military involvement ended in Southeast Asia in the 1970s.But now, with parents increasingly concerned about chaotic conduct and the lack of value-oriented curricula in some public school classrooms, military schools are filled to capacity.

I SHOULD HAVE seen it coming," she said.And from a long way off.She filled out every college application herself, pushing it under his nose for a signature. She signed him up for the SAT prep classes. I purchased for him the SAT computer software. But I don't think his fingers ever touched the keyboard.While the rest of his high school class was visiting college campuses, my nephew Rudi was slinging weights in the garage or leaving on a long jog, wearing fatigues, army boots and carrying a 60-pound backpack.

So the quirky Princeton Review guidebook to customer satisfaction among U.S. college students is out, and it finds St. John's College in Annapolis comes out tops in distaste for the food served on campus.You could say that when tuition is more than $20,000 a year, students have a right to expect their money's worth. But college student who can't find a good meal in Annapolis probably needs a remedial course in eating even if he or she has read all The Great Books in the program.More happily for the administration, the school ranks No. 5 in good teaching, No. 4 in accessibility of professors and No. 3 in class discussion, according to "The Princeton Review's Best 311 Colleges," just published by Random House.

Two Mount Hebron lacrosse defensemen will be playing locally next season. Mike Machiran has committed to Towson State and Jon Smith to UMBC.Machiran, a 6-foot-1, 185-pounder, plays excellent position defense, a perfect complement to another Vikings defenseman, Mike Stromberg, who signed with Loyola last week.Smith is a 6-3, 190-pounder who plays close defense.Both played football at Mount Hebron. Machiran, a four-year varsity football player, was a linebacker and tight end; Smith was the quarterback for three seasons.

25 years agoThe Anne Arundel County School Board yesterday adopted a policy to prohibit employees of the school system from working directly under close relatives. -- The Sun, Nov. 4, 1971.Joseph W. Alton, Jr., Anne Arundel County executive, praised the council for defeating attempts to delete certain key zoning classifications but says he has not decided whether to veto certain instances of "spot zoning," primarily in the Gatts Corner and Mayo areas. -- The Sun, Nov. 4, 1971.The U. S. Naval Academy, one of the last all-male bastions in the Navy, has brought aboard four staff officers who are Waves.

When Houston Oilers rookie Eddie George was a high school junior in Philadelphia, his mother, Donna, made a decision that started him on the road to the Heisman Trophy and a lucrative contract as a first-round NFL draft choice.She sent him to a military academy in Virginia, in the hopes of making him a better student."I sent him there because he had a dream of winning the Heisman Trophy and playing in the NFL," Donna George said. "I knew that if those dreams were going to come true, his grades would have to improve . . . to get him into a major college program."

The Naval Academy reportedly is considering a new pregnancy policy that both anti-abortion groups and supporters of abortion rights say would encourage abortion.Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the anti-abortion National Right to Life Committee, said yesterday the group has obtained a copy of a proposal that would allow midshipmen who get pregnant to remain at the academy only if they terminate the pregnancy within 30 days."I think it is an outrageous policy," he said. The proposal is "a pro-abortion policy that says if you get pregnant, it will be the end of your military career.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Air Force Academy has lost 25 percent of the freshman women in two of its last three classes, an attrition rate at least double that of Annapolis and West Point.Academy officials are uncertain whether there is any link between the high dropout rate and the widespread complaints of sexual harassment that have recently swirled around the school in Colorado Springs, Colo.However, Gen. Bradley C. Hosmer, the academy's superintendent, told the school's Board of Visitors at the group's annual meeting in Washington last week that female cadets may be leaving the school at higher rates because of the "pressures ** and tensions" of integrating women into a traditionally male environment.

You've got your U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, and your U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point. Those, my fellow Americans, are our national service academies. Now consider one more: the U.S. Public Service Academy - same model, except no weapons, no boats and, as far as I know, no buzz cuts on the first day of school. The USPSA. This is not a reality, of course.

Roger A. Antaya Sr., a retired general insurance agent who had been a football coach, died of cancer Oct. 22 at his Timonium home. He was 87. Mr. Antaya was born and raised in Gardner, Mass. He was a 1939 graduate of Gardner High School and graduated in 1940 from Worcester Academy, where he had been an outstanding football player. Mr. Antaya continued playing the sport at Dartmouth College, from which he earned a bachelor's degree in 1944. He was drafted by the National Football League's old Boston Yanks but declined, family members said.

Class registration through Aug. 30 Registration for Harford Community College's Fall 2008 credit courses is being held through Aug. 30 in the student center at 401 Thomas Run Road, Bel Air. Walk-in registration is available from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday. Saturday registration will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 16, Aug. 23 and Aug. 30. The college will be closed Sept. 1. Fall classes begin Sept. 2. Students may also register for courses by mail or fax. Forms and information are included in the Schedule of Summer/Fall 2008 Credit Classes.

Federal lawmakers in Maryland are pushing for a national database to catalog sexual assaults at the U.S. Naval Academy and other military colleges, months after a government agency found that incidents were inconsistently reported. The effort comes after years of reports finding a hostile climate for women at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and other attempts, which have met mixed success, at combating sexual assaults there. Legislation recently introduced by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings would require the Defense Department to create the database along with standards for reporting sexual assaults.

In the early morning hours on Nov. 17, a band of cadets from the U.S. Military Academy sneaked onto an 875-acre organic dairy farm, located about 15 miles outside Annapolis, and stole three goats. They raced back to West Point, N.Y., slapped together some photos and created a YouTube video that detailed "Operation Good Shepherd" -- the theft of the Naval Academy's unguarded and defenseless mascots. Yawn. This still passes as a legitimate prank in this rivalry? C'mon, cadets. Log off the computers and crack open a dusty copy of the Army-Navy Prankster History Book.

Please forgive the irrepressible grins, the sunny outlook and the other outward signs of deep satisfaction displayed this week by fans of U.S. Naval Academy football. Navy's 46-44 triple-overtime victory over the Fighting Irish on Saturday in South Bend, Ind., was bound to have a lasting effect. Beating a rival once every 43 years will do that. The Notre Dame-Navy match-up is one of the more lopsided annual events in college football. One fields a team of high school all-Americans, the other with future Navy and Marine Corps officers.

WASHINGTON -- Treatment of the torture issue during the second Republican presidential debate illustrates what's great and what can go terribly wrong with these presidential face-offs. Fox News' Brit Hume spelled out a hypothetical scenario worthy of Fox TV's Jack Bauer thriller, 24. His plot involved suicide bombers simultaneously attacking shopping malls, captured suspects being taken to the military's detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and U.S. intelligence agents believing that there are plans for an even larger attack.

The actors were a little rusty Wednesday afternoon. They spoke and moved awkwardly during the scene, with many sheepish calls for "line" - their dialogue - after a six-week performance hiatus. But the tug of war between sisters Blanche and Stella, which comes about midway through Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, was not without its moments. As she pleaded with Stella to leave her abusive husband, Blanche seemed less flighty than she often appears in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and Stella, resisting, seem to seethe.

Several national publications gave high marks to the Naval Academy this week for top-flight engineering and chemistry programs, accessible professors and its "stone-cold sober" campus. The engineering program has long won national renown, and this year it was ranked third by U.S. News and World Report among institutions that don't grant doctorates. The academy tied for third in that category with the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., and Cooper Union in New York City. Two private schools tied for first: Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Calif.

Colorado Springs, Colo.-- --From the moment new cadets arrive at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the message is made abundantly clear. They attend classes in small groups, separated by gender, and learn the meaning of terms like "bystander effect," "non-stranger assault" and "situational awareness." They see video screenings of Frank: The Undetected Rapist. Fliers all over the sprawling, space-age campus bear the numbers 333-SARC, a sexual assault hot line on which cadets can call a trained specialist at any hour to ask questions, seek advice or report sex crimes.