There was a great movie about a Sergeant at West Point who had worked there for 50 years. He had joined the Army to get out of paying for (his) broken dishes at the West Point mess hall, which job he got right off the boat from Ireland. At the end of the movie he was asking Eisenhower for permission to not retire... When the movie was made, West Point had only been an institution for 150 years.
The movie was called “The Long Gray Line.” Tyrone Power played Marty Maher, the sergeant.