West Point

The Northern Chesapeake West Point Society held its Annual Founders Day Celebration March 16 at the Maryland Golf and Country Clubs in Bel Air. More than 85 people representing graduates, cadets and parents of cadets, former professors and friends of the academy attended. The date marked the 210th anniversary of the founding of the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York; on March 16, 1802, Congress approved legislation establishing the academy. West Point is one of the oldest military academies in the world and is the oldest continuously run military post in America.

The Northern Chesapeake West Point Society held its Annual Founders Day Celebration March 16 at the Maryland Golf and Country Clubs in Bel Air. More than 85 people representing graduates, cadets and parents of cadets, former professors and friends of the academy attended. The date marked the 210th anniversary of the founding of the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York; on March 16, 1802, Congress approved legislation establishing the academy. West Point is one of the oldest military academies in the world and is the oldest continuously run military post in America.

The student: Brittney Berkoff, 18 School: River Hill High Special achievement: She was accepted by the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. How she describes the application process: "They want to know everything. I literally had to fill out one [nomination packet] that I had to fill out 80 questions about myself." This led to an interview with U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, who nominated her to the academy. "It was a very overwhelming process, and it takes a lot of time. You have to plan ahead," Berkoff said.

Duty, service and honor are big words. They are also ones that are often abused these days by Washington politicians who thank each other for their "service" even as they sink deeper into partisan gridlock. "Game of Honor," a documentary about West Point and Annapolis and the Army-Navy football game played Dec. 10 in Landover, reminds viewers of the higher meanings of those words. The two-hour film premieres at 10 p.m. Wednesday on Showtime. Producers Pete Radovich and Steve Karasik say they didn't set out with any such lofty goal in mind for their Showtime-CBS Sports co-production, which was shot during the past eight months in the barracks and on the playing fields at the U.S. military and naval academies.

WASHINGTON -- As West Point cadet Johnson C. Whittaker lay sleeping, three masked men burst into his room. With a razor, they gouged his hair and slashed his face, hands and ears. "Like we do hogs down South," they told him.They tied his hands and feet to his bed, smashed a mirror over his head and left him, barely clothed and bleeding.Whittaker, one of the first African Americans to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., was court-martialed and discharged. West Point brass maintained that he had attacked himself to dishonor the military academy.

Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point, by David Lipsky. Houghton Mifflin. 336 pages. $25. For visitors, West Point is among America's most seductive places. Novelist and Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky spent four years - 1998 to 2002 - in nearby Highland Falls, N.Y., on what he calls "an extended tour of hanging out" at the U.S. Military Academy, and his book about the experience, Absolutely American, subsequently became a labor of love. Lipsky is fascinated by the rigors of the academy and how a diverse group of young men and women struggle with its challenges.

Maggie Dixon wasn't the coach who sold Alex McGuire on Army. Truth be told, McGuire never really needed to be sold on West Point, not with a father and two uncles who walked the Long Gray Line before her. Indeed, Maggie Dixon got to Army just two weeks before the just-concluded women's basketball season started, and was there for just seven months before her death last week after an episode of heart arrhythmia. Seven months hardly seems like enough time to get much below skin level, yet 28-year-old Maggie Dixon, in just one basketball season, got all the way into the soul of the Army campus.

The student: Mark Adams, 17 School: River Hill High Special achievement: He was accepted to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett nominated him. "I had to be interviewed by a three-person panel he [Bartlett] established of leaders [military and business] from the local area," Mark said. Each member of Congress may sponsor only five West Point cadets at any given time, including those already enrolled in the academy. What was the admissions process like? Mark had to complete a candidate kit. "That included info on physical tests, medical exams, academic transcripts and also essay questions."

Growing up in Glenwood, Joseph McDonald always knew he wanted to be in the military, but he also wanted to attend college. Now, as a junior at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, McDonald is fortunate enough to be doing both. "In my eyes, West Point is the best school in the world," he said. McDonald, who is majoring in economics, was named to the dean's list the first semester this school year and received a Silver Star as a sophomore for being on the dean's list both semesters.

Kathy and Kristy Mitroka are identical twins who do everything together.They take the same classes, play the same sports, practice the same instrument and even earn the same grades. Starting this summer, they'll be wearing the same uniform, too.The seniors at Ellicott City's Centennial High School have won presidential appointments to the U.S. Military Academy, continuing a family tradition at West Point.Their father, George, graduated from West Point in 1977 and is a lieutenant colonel with the Corps of Engineers assigned to the Pentagon.

Getting there Although trains travel to the region (Amtrak to New York, then Metro North to Peekskill), the best way to see the expansive Hudson Valley region is via car. From Baltimore, West Point is about 270 miles. The five-hour drive up Interstate 95, then the New Jersey Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway North finally becomes picturesque once you enter the Palisades Parkway, eventually landing you in the Hudson Valley, where you'll follow a series of smallish roads overlooking the Hudson River to the Academy.

Maryland Art Place chairwoman and fundraiser Suzi Cordish doesn't like to sit still for very long. Along with her husband, developer David Cordish, she travels to exotic settings around the world, wherever work and interests take the couple. They frequent world-class art fairs, international tennis tournaments and high-powered global conferences. But when it comes to divulging her favorite getaway, Cordish points to an American region that is long revered for its inspiring historical significance and well-preserved natural beauty: the Hudson Valley and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Brig. Gen. Raymond J. Winkel Jr., a retired career Army officer and a Vietnam War veteran who was chairman of the physics department at West Point for more than two decades, died Aug. 30 of cancer at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. He was 65. The son of a civil engineer and a homemaker, General Winkel was born in Baltimore and raised in Gardenville. He attended Polytechnic Institute and was 17 when appointed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

America faces many deficits - in federal and state budgets, in trade, in business and, most assuredly, in personal finance. But there is one very large deficit that may underlie all of them. We face a "posterity deficit," born out of our growing failure to think about the well-being of future generations. Most people are not much concerned with what lies ahead for the world beyond their lifetimes. Yet, decisions we make today on questions like the environment and spending will have far-ranging implications on the lives of future generations - for better or worse.

Longtime readers of this column know that I have a son in the military, so it is no surprise that I listened intently to President Barack Obama's speech last week at West Point, my hands working each other nervously as he announced plans to send more troops to Afghanistan. My son was in a pipeline to go to war no matter what the president said that night - I will say no more than that - so it was not like a different speech would have meant he was going on vacation instead. And I heard candidate Obama say that Iraq was the wrong war, and that he would turn our attention back to Afghanistan if elected, so his decision did not surprise me - although I regret that this campaign promise is one he is so determined to keep.

Capt. Brian M. Bunting was a star athlete from Potomac, a West Point graduate, a man who could be serious and disciplined. But the first thing that hits you when looking through his pictures is the smile: A huge, toothy, goofy grin. Bunting, 29, a member of the Individual Ready Reserve assigned to the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Syracuse, N.Y., was killed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Tuesday when a bomb exploded near his vehicle. Three other soldiers also died in the attack. It was Bunting's first combat tour as a ready reservist, one of a pool of soldiers who have completed their service but remain available for call-up when needed.

A mere joke. That's what a young Alex McGuire considered any talk that she might attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and play basketball some day. "Growing up, we used to joke about it," said The Sun's 2004 All-Metro Player of the Year from Arundel High. "Actually I never thought I would end up here. The Military Academy was never one of my top choices (even though her father and two uncles attended the U.S. Military Academy). When it came down to it and I came up here to visit, everything just fit for me and I think I made the best choice for me. I just love it here."

Throughout the Mitroka house, family photographs tell a story. Here's one of the whole clan: Mom's next to Dad in his Army uniform. Brother G. A. is in his. Twin sisters Kristy and Kathy are in dress whites and caps. There's Tim, the baby, in a plain blue suit and a tie. Here's one of the four Mitroka children: G. A.'s in his West Point graduation uniform. Kristy and Kathy grin beside him in matching West Point uniforms. And Tim's on the end in shorts and a T-shirt. No more. At the end of the month, 17-year-old Tim will be the last member of his family to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

On his days off, Lt. Col. James J. Walton liked to parachute out of airplanes and bike long distances - once embarking on a weeklong trek from Richmond, Va., to Lexington, Ky. The career soldier, who relatives said never complained about two deployments and whose fourth wedding anniversary would have been tomorrow, was killed Saturday in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was 41. As a member of an Army Military Transition Team, Colonel Walton trained Afghan soldiers. It was a job he enjoyed, although he often reported to his family about its front-line danger, his father-in-law, Joseph Moschler, said yesterday.