Plebes

The wake-up call came at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday, but Midshipman Alberto Salabarria was ready well before then. Anticipating a grueling, thrilling, muddy day of Sea Trials at the Naval Academy, Salabarria and some of his classmates couldn't wait. "Everyone was listening to music, trying to motivate themselves," Salabarria said. Staying upbeat is a key to surviving Sea Trials, a 14-hour test of strength, endurance and will that marks the end of the freshman, or "plebe," year at the Naval Academy.

The wake-up call came at 3:15 a.m. Tuesday, but Midshipman Alberto Salabarria was ready well before then. Anticipating a grueling, thrilling, muddy day of Sea Trials at the Naval Academy, Salabarria and some of his classmates couldn't wait. "Everyone was listening to music, trying to motivate themselves," Salabarria said. Staying upbeat is a key to surviving Sea Trials, a 14-hour test of strength, endurance and will that marks the end of the freshman, or "plebe," year at the Naval Academy.

The snide comments surprised Randy Kurtz, who figured she was suffering the same harrowing rites of passage as her U.S. Naval Academy classmates as they trudged through the plebe summer of 1978. "You don't belong here," the male midshipmen might say. A few seemed to take particular glee in pulling her down as she attempted the Herndon Climb, which culminates plebe year. Kurtz, a Connecticut native, was part of the third academy class to include women, and the spirit of equality had not sunk in with everyone.

Fresh off of his referendum victories, Gov. Martin O'Malley said that throughout Maryland's history the state has been better served by "a representative democracy rather than plebiscites. " I looked up the word plebiscite in the dictionary and found it means "a vote by which the people of an entire country or district express an opinion for or against a proposal especially on a choice of government or ruler. " Put simply, the people have the ability to voice their opinion on a choice made on their behalf by the government.

They are plebes no longer. It took two hours, 10 minutes and 13 seconds Tuesday for the freshman class at the U.S. Naval Academy to have one of its own knock a plebe's "dixie cup" hat from the top of the greased Herndon Monument and replace it with a midshipman's hat, symbolically morphing the group into 4th-class Mids. Andrew Craig, 19, of Tulsa, Okla., achieved the goal in the noisy and slippery event that drew between 800 and 1,000 plebes, officials said. Tradition holds that the student who caps the monument will be first in the class to reach the rank of admiral, though that has yet to happen.

They crawled through muddy trenches. They did sit-ups in the Severn River. They performed a mock evacuation of an injured pilot. And they kept on going. Midshipmen completing their first year at the Naval Academy endured the rigorous 14-hour Sea Trials on Tuesday. The annual training exercise put the approximately 1,000 plebes through 30 challenging events from predawn darkness through late afternoon. "One, two, three, 10," hollered plebes of the 10th Company as they counted squats in the water before flopping backward with a roar.

The lowly plebes, caked in mud and sweat, jogged toward the "minefield" of cinder blocks, tires and sticks and began to holler wildly. Dressed in fatigues, some with painted faces and one sporting a freshly cut Mohawk, they'd already been warned to stop their whooping or face more "PT": more push-ups, more sit-ups, more leg lifts, more pain. Almost immediately and in unison, the 25th Company of plebes began, with respects to Walt Whitman, to "sound their barbaric yawps" in defiance. The minefield was only the latest challenge for about 1,000 Naval Academy freshmen, who awoke at 3:30 a.m. yesterday to begin "Sea Trials," one of many rites that mark their transition into fully respected midshipmen at the school.

It was during a family trip to the U.S. Naval Academy while she was in eighth grade that Emily Kochenash became interested in becoming a midshipman.Yesterday, the 17-year-old from Allentown, Pa., was standing with her family in a long, winding line, waiting to sign in and pick up her gear."

Hundreds of heads are already bobbing seal-like above this soggy piece of artificial turf, and the sun hasn't even risen over the Naval Academy.The sweat-soaked midshipmen count and grunt their way through a round of sit-ups, emitting a low, velvety roar that rises like steam to the banks of overhead lights.The next instant they're on their feet, dashing in long, serpentine lines a hundred yards to the end of the illuminated practice field, only to return for leg lifts, push-ups, jumping jacks and anything else the booming, disembodied voice on the PA system orders.

Joseph Leahy, a husky 19-year-old from Long Island, N.Y., entered the gates of the Naval Academy early yesterday, following in his mother's footsteps. Leahy, son of one of the first female graduates of the academy, was one of about 1,200 plebes to arrive at the Annapolis military college for the punishing yearly ritual known as Induction Day. Noreen Leahy, a former naval officer who graduated with the second wave of academy women in 1981, watched her oldest child cross over from civilian to military life.

An article in the Nov. 16, 1912, edition of The Argus reported a Sunday showdown in the streets over love was shut down by police. Thistle, a milling village near Catonsville, had an exciting Sunday afternoon when Dorsey Harrison , 17 years old, and George Whalen , 18 years old, who hale from Ilchester, appeared on the roads flourishing pistols. The trouble, it is said, started over the attentions paid by each to a young woman of that village and the pistols were brought into play to emphasize the rival lovers' remarks.

Plenty of Navy football players experience the same trepidation whether they go first to the academy's prep school or arrive directly in Annapolis from high school. They are often homesick, missing their friends, family and former teammates. They are usually overmatched on the field. Freshman cornerback Quincy Adams had little in the way of that kind of stressful transition. Adams spent last year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School with two former teammates from San Antonio's Louis D. Brandeis High, and joined another former teammate once he and the others arrived as plebes in Annapolis this summer.

Rear Adm. Robert Waring McNitt, a naval officer whose career spanned two wars and who, after retiring from the Navy, was dean of admissions at the Naval Academy for more than a decade, died Sunday of heart failure at the Ginger Cove retirement community in Annapolis. He was 97. The son of an industrial engineer and a homemaker, Robert Waring McNitt was born and raised in Perth Amboy, N.J., where his interest in boats and sailing began as a youngster. He was a teenager when he and a brother built a dinghy, which they enjoyed sailing on nearby Raritan Bay. As a teenager, he achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

The snide comments surprised Randy Kurtz, who figured she was suffering the same harrowing rites of passage as her U.S. Naval Academy classmates as they trudged through the plebe summer of 1978. "You don't belong here," the male midshipmen might say. A few seemed to take particular glee in pulling her down as she attempted the Herndon Climb, which culminates plebe year. Kurtz, a Connecticut native, was part of the third academy class to include women, and the spirit of equality had not sunk in with everyone.

They are plebes no longer. It took two hours, 10 minutes and 13 seconds Tuesday for the freshman class at the U.S. Naval Academy to have one of its own knock a plebe's "dixie cup" hat from the top of the greased Herndon Monument and replace it with a midshipman's hat, symbolically morphing the group into 4th-class Mids. Andrew Craig, 19, of Tulsa, Okla., achieved the goal in the noisy and slippery event that drew between 800 and 1,000 plebes, officials said. Tradition holds that the student who caps the monument will be first in the class to reach the rank of admiral, though that has yet to happen.

They crawled through muddy trenches. They did sit-ups in the Severn River. They performed a mock evacuation of an injured pilot. And they kept on going. Midshipmen completing their first year at the Naval Academy endured the rigorous 14-hour Sea Trials on Tuesday. The annual training exercise put the approximately 1,000 plebes through 30 challenging events from predawn darkness through late afternoon. "One, two, three, 10," hollered plebes of the 10th Company as they counted squats in the water before flopping backward with a roar.

To burble a pea, put it between your lips and tilt your head back until you are looking at the ceiling. Then, "ever so gently," blow. Now keep that pea there, and inch into space, for "an interminable ten seconds." As performed by plebes to upperclassmen orders, pea-burbling has been one of many mealtime entertainments at the Naval Academy. To sail through shoeshine inspection, loosen your belt. With your trousers extending further down, only your brilliant shoe tips will be visible. On the other hand, when the stench of the Navy goat pervades Bancroft Hall nearby, the well-directed pail of water from an upper-floor dormitory window will probably get you put on report.

Navy Midshipman Jeffrey W. Sauers, Jr , son of Suzette W. Sauers and Jeffrey W. Sauers, Sr. of Glen Arm recently completed Plebe Summer while attending the United States Naval Academy. Sauers will go on to complete the academic year as a midshipmen. He is a 2011 graduate of Calvert Hall College High School of Towson.