‘A whole different life’
Latest plebe class inducted into Naval Academy
By Chris Amos - camos@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 16, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The brand-new plebes hurried between stations, where they received white uniforms, white gym shoes, one canteen, a medical examination and a snap course on how to salute and respond to instruction.

And somewhere out there, their best friends and former high school classmates were kicking off their summer vacation.

“Let’s go. You’re moving. Pick up your trash,” a first-class midshipman told a group of 20 plebes — or freshmen — as they struggled to lift bags filled with uniforms and supplies. It was June 27, Induction Day at the Naval Academy, when 800 recent high school grads headed to the school on the Severn River to begin new lives in the Navy.

As the first group of 24 plebes left, another group was greeted with more instruction. “Chest out. Instead of looking at me, you will be looking at the wall.”

Firsties, entering their senior year, lead much of the plebes’ training during their seven-week indoctrination period, known as “Plebe Summer.”

Between each station, recruits were forced to walk along a yellow line that coursed through the ground floor of Alumni Hall, the arena where the Navy basketball team plays, but which doubled as a training center on Induction Day. The line was patrolled by several other first-class midshipmen and led to a room where 21 barbers toiled, shearing off the hair of male midshipmen and making sure female midshipmen’s hair was within regulations.

A group of parents peered through glass doors, trying to get a glimpse of their children, who in all-white uniforms and with shorn hair were suddenly more difficult to recognize.

Elizabeth Dippel, who traveled with her husband, Charles, to Annapolis from Los Angeles to watch their son Christopher, was one of them.

“I am extremely excited, emotional and proud. He is an old soul,” she said of her son’s joining the Navy during wartime. “He wanted to do this. Since he was a little boy, he has been reading about World War II. He knows all about airplanes and ships. We support him 100 percent.”

Midshipman 3rd Class Jonathan Thai waited with his parents to catch a glimpse of his younger brother, Kevin, who was entering the academy one year after him.

Thai, who went through I-Day last year after a year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School, said he was not worried about his brother making it through his plebe year.

If he does, the Thais both hope to become Navy SEALs.

The class of 2007 had a distinct international flavor, with Kevin Thai, whose parents emigrated from China before his birth, and exchange students from Tunisia, Lithuania, Albania, Azerbaijan and Madagascar, who will return home to serve in their militaries after graduating.

The father of another midshipman, Raphael Asinime Sr., served aboard a Nigerian navy frigate as an officer before he moved to Dallas, where his son Raphael Asinime Jr. was an all-district soccer player and honor society member.

“It is great,” he said. “It is an experience that words cannot describe. I would not trade it for everything in the world. I am a proud father today,” he said of seeing his son sworn in.

One day earlier, more than 300 graduates of the Naval Academy Preparatory School and prior-service enlisted sailors and Marines from the fleet went through the same process.

Afterward, they all marched into the courtyard of the building that they will call home for the next four years, Bancroft Hall, and were sworn in as midshipmen by Navy Capt. Margaret Klein, the commandant of midshipmen.

Before they took the oath, Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler addressed the group.

“You must grow and develop every day for the next four years to earn the privilege of leading our sailors and Marines,” he said. “Those sailors and Marines are counting on me to make sure you are ready to lead them on your first day as a commissioned officer. I intend to carry out that mission.

“The next four years will not be easy. But let me remind you that I chose you while nine other men and women are at home wishing they were good enough to be in your place.”

Then the midshipmen were given 40 minutes with family members to say goodbye.
Female mids

The class includes the largest-ever number of female midshipmen — 255, in spite of high-profile courts-martial in the past few years that involved charges of rape, assault and sexual harassment.

Henriellen Quail, the mother of Katherine Quail, a plebe, said the academy’s efforts to improve treatment of female midshipmen — and the fact that the Naval Academy dormitory rooms have their own showers — made her comfortable sending her daughter there. Her husband, Bill Quail, agreed, adding that he thought many of the incidents were over-publicized.

Perhaps even more than if they were leaving their children at a civilian college, the parents seemed to recognize that their sons and daughters were moving into a new experience of their own.

“He was in high school one month ago,” Dippel said of her son. “When they walk through that threshold, they are walking into a whole different life.”

Ellie