Upon graduation from the Naval Academy, you apparently can choose which branch of the armed services to fulfill your military duty.
When it came time for Jake Dove, a senior at the U.S. Naval Academy, to decide how he would fulfill his required military duty after graduation, there was no question about it: Marine Corps all the way.
"In my eyes it's a perfect community," said Dove, an Annapolis High School graduate. "The idea of being a platoon leader in charge of guys that have done two, three tours in Iraq already, when I haven't been over there - that's an awesome responsibility. I'm eager to take it on." Despite a war that has entered its fourth year with mounting casualties and waning public support, more and more midshipmen at the Annapolis military college are volunteering for the Marines when asked to choose how they will fulfill the five-year commitment required of all academy graduates.
When the assignments were made official last month for the 992 members of the class of 2006, 209 were placed as officers with the Corps - the most in the school's 161-year history. . . . Having a surplus of mids who want to be Marines has been a change from the Vietnam era. In 1968, the Marine Corps failed to meet its quota for the first time in academy history.
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2 comments:
the Marine Corps is part of the Navy. Future Marine officers are trained at the Naval Academy, as I'm sure you noticed there is no Marine Corps Academy.
But, if you are an honor graduate, like top 1% of your class, a grad of any of the three service academies can choose a commission in another branch of service.
Only a former VMI cadet would know that.
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