In addition to providing biographical information about the various players and personnel that composed the 1995 teams for Army and Navy and mentioning other factoids about the places and people visited or met, John Feinstein’s Army vs. Navy book necessarily includes information about the schools.
Here’s something that I learned today about the three service academies:
“Generally speaking, Navy is considered the most difficult academically because more engineering courses are required and because so many of the classes are extremely technical in their orientation. Army is considered to be the most difficult militarily: it has the most rules and the less tolerance for breakdowns in military discipline. At Army they wake up the earliest–formation at 6:25 AM; first class at 7:15–and morning formation is always outside, regardless of the weather. At Navy, they move inside when the weather turns cold, and formation isn’t until 7 A.M., first class at 7:55.
Air Force’s upperclassmen have carpeting in their rooms and some of them have TV sets. At Army, no one is allowed to watch television anywhere on the base until they are cows (juniors). Air Force’s rooms are the most spacious, although Navy’s–which are the smallest of the three–do have small showers. The West Point cadets consider this an extraordinary luxury” (Feinstein 198-199).
Does anyone know if any of those conditions have changed in the decade that Feinstein was researching and publishing this book?
