Rare light sets on merchant marines
Bush to address grads at academy

By Frank Eltman, Associated Press | June 19, 2006

KINGS POINT, N.Y. -- It is a US service academy just outside New York City. Its graduates have fought and died in all corners of the world, and since Sept. 11, 2001, have played a key role in bolstering homeland security.

Even though some midshipmen acknowledge that their school is not the most renowned service academy, they are hoping that begins to change today when President Bush becomes the first American president to address a graduating class of the US Merchant Marine Academy.

``I think it's huge that the president is coming here," said Rear Admiral Christopher McMahon, deputy superintendent of the academy, on an 82-acre campus 20 miles east of Manhattan.

``Anything that raises the level of awareness in this country on what the maritime industry is all about is a good thing," McMahon said. ``Because so many people don't understand it is a critical component of our economy."

Kings Point graduates work as deck officers aboard container ships, oil tankers, passenger cruise ships, and other vessels. Others remain on land and have become engineers in shipbuilding companies and work in a variety of port operations, including security, while some opt for military careers.

The Merchant Marine Academy was created after a 1934 fire in which 134 people died aboard the passenger ship Morro Castle. Congress acknowledged the need for maritime-training standards and passed the Merchant Marine Act that created the academy in 1936. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the school in 1943 in Kings Point.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the academy has played a leading role in developing international training standards for maritime security.

Graduates receive bachelor's degrees in marine engineering or marine transportation and a merchant marine officer's license. They are required to spend five years in the maritime industry and eight years in the US Naval Reserve as payback for a free college education. About 25 percent satisfy their obligation with a five-year active duty military commission. About 15 percent of the 950 students are female, and Kings Point officials boast that in 1974 they became the first service academy to admit women.

An innovative aspect of the education is the sea year -- an internship in which students are placed on working commercial vessels . Students first go out in their sophomore year for about 135 days and then return to sea in their junior year for another 265 days.

Ellie