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From today's you couldn't make it up if you tried file.......Obama's protectors have ordered graduating Midshipmen....and I suppose Commissioned Officers through Flag rank...to leave their swords at home. Full Dress White includes "wear sword". More to the point...those badges of office have been earned in a manner Obongo and his minions just wouldn't begin to understand. Important traditions that inspire are kind of lost on the red banner crowd, apparently. Further, ceremonial swords never seemed to bother the Secret Service for any previous President. And before World War II, the swords were not particularly "ceremonial", I've seen some of those...

Graduating midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis are being told in writing to leave at home or in their vehicles all "ceremonial swords" and anything else "that might be considered a weapon or a threat by screeners" for Friday's outdoor commencement ceremonies featuring an address by President Barack Obama.

ANNAPOLIS | President Obama on Friday promised the U.S. Naval Academy's graduating class that he will not send them into combat unless absolutely necessary and will always make sure they are properly prepared and equipped, in an apparent swipe at the Bush administration and the Iraq war.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Nobody protested President Obama’s commencement address Friday morning at the United States Naval Academy. Nobody told Mr. Obama he was undeserving of an honorary degree. Instead, under a nearly cloudless blue sky, the president was treated to a 21-gun salute, a Blue Angels flyover — and a respite from the controversy that has dogged him at two previous graduation ceremonies.

SWORDLESS SAILORS Graduating midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis are being told in writing to leave at home or in their vehicles all "ceremonial swords" and anything else "that might be considered a weapon or a threat by screeners" for Friday's outdoor commencement ceremonies featuring an address by President Barack Obama.

Obama, before and after.

Obama vows not to send people to war without cause By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press ANNAPOLIS, Md. – President Barack Obama promised graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy on Friday that, as their commander in chief, he will only send them "into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary." In his first address to military graduates, Obama also pledged to invest in the men and women who defend America's liberty, not just in the weapons they would take with them into battle against 21st century threats. "I will only send you into harm's way when it is absolutely necessary,...

President Barack Obama stands with coach Urban Meyer, second left, after he was presented with a personalized football by the 2008 NCAA Football Champions Florida Gators in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, April 23, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama (C) is presented with a football and a football jersey by tight end Cornelius Ingram (R) and other players as Obama welcomes the 2008 NCAA national champions, the University of Florida football team in the East Room of the White House in Washington, April 23, 2009. U.S. President Barack Obama peeks through a giant replica of...

[Midshipman 4th Class Curtis] Calabrese, from Boca Raton, Fla., was the first in decades to fulfill a tradition of putting his cover, or hat, on top of the chapel's obelisk, earning himself and the 1,200 other plebes - the school's term for freshmen - a week of relaxed restrictions. His accomplishment wasn't about bravado or a daring climb hundreds of feet above the ground as much as it was about engineering, ingenuity and a cooperative weather system.

President George W. Bush playfully kicked a football and presided over the pre-game coin toss on Saturday as he basked in the pageantry of the annual Army-Navy game, one of the sport's most storied rivalries. The crowd at Lincoln Financial Field let out hearty cheers of "USA, USA" as Bush made his way to midfield for the ceremonial coin toss,…MORE Earlier in the day, Bush got a look at how history will remember him — at least in one artist's view — as he presided over the unveiling of his portrait at The Union League of Philadelphia. "Welcome to...

Fifty years ago, 899 young men gathered in the then-new Naval Academy field house to hear a graduation address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After four grueling years of military and academic training, their numbers had dwindled by a quarter,but for those who had survived, promising futures stretched out ahead. [snip] "We're not going out looking for another job, especially one that's as overwhelming as being president of the United States," said Potter, who planned to travel from California to attend the reunion. "Many of us wonder, 'Where does he get the energy to do this?' But those who knew...

A recent Washington Post profile of John McCain’s years at the Naval Academy portrayed him as an unruly, fun-loving, under-achieving Midshipman struggling with his obligation to live up to his family’s brilliant military legacy. It was “a four-year course of insubordination and rebellion,” McCain later wrote. McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in 1958, five spots above the “Anchorman,” the lowest-ranking midshipman. In this respect he did uphold one family tradition; his similarly rebellious father Jack, who would rise to the rank of Admiral and was the Pacific Command CINC while his son was being held prisoner in Hanoi, had...

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The U.S. Naval Academy is building on efforts to increase student diversity with the help of a new commercial and a graphic novel. ... Vice Adm. Jeffrey Fowler, the academy's superintendent, wants to make the academy's student body as diverse as the Navy's enlisted force, in which minorities make up about 47 percent.

Remember Idris Leppla? You may recall about 6 months ago, Barnard Senior Idris Leppla became an internet celebrity after the publication of her incoherent diatribe in The Columbia Spectator entitled The Truth About The Academies. You can access this article and some of her other Spectator articles at this link. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/25716 Well, it seems that the field for Fullbright Scholarships must have been a bit thin this year, since Ms. Leppla has been awarded a Fullbright to study heroin addiction and prescription drug addiction in France. Judging from the clarity of her writings, this may be an autobiographical work. And...

The ACLU is threatening to sue the U.S. Naval Academy because they say prayers before lunch.

ACLU tries to halt mealtime prayer at Naval Academy By Josh Mitchell | Sun reporter 8:09 PM EDT, June 25, 2008 A national civil liberties group is renewing a push to end mealtime prayer at the U.S. Naval Academy, where a group of midshipmen recently complained to officials that they felt pressured to participate in the longtime practice. The tradition, believed to date back to the college's founding in 1845, now involves a chaplain's leading grace before a noon meal that all 4,200 midshipmen must attend at King Hall. Midshipmen are not required to pray, though they must stand during...

Three years after a scandal at the Air Force Academy over the evangelizing of cadets by Christian staff and faculty members, students and staff at West Point and the Naval Academy are complaining that their schools, too, have pushed religion on cadets and midshipmen.

Mullen said he was inspired to write the essay after receiving a constant stream of legitimate, if troubling, questions while visiting U.S. military personnel around the world, including, "What if a Democrat wins?" and, "What will that do to the mission in Iraq?" "I am not suggesting that military professionals abandon all personal opinions about modern social or political issues," Mullen wrote. "What I am suggesting - indeed, what the nation expects - is that military personnel will, in the execution of the mission assigned to them, put aside their partisan leanings. Political opinions have no place in cockpit or...

President Bush held a meeting this morning with his cabinet to discuss the economy and the Columbia Free Trade Agreement This afternoon, President Bush presented the Commander-In-Chief's Trophy to the United States Naval Academy Football Team in the Rose Garden Transcript First Lady Laura Bush and Jenna Bush visited first grade students at Martin Luther King Elementary School in Washington, Monday, April 14, 2008 To mark the tenth anniversary of 'Teach for America Week' Enoy your visit to Sanity Island

Hundreds of Naval Academy plebes attempt to climb the Herndon monument in an annual tradition marking the end of their freshman year in Annapolis. (Sun photo by Doug Kapustin / May 17, 2007) It's one of the Naval Academy's most enduring traditions: Hundreds of shirtless plebes mark the end of their first year by swarming a grease-slicked, 21-foot-obelisk, climbing over one another in a race to the top. Now, academy officials are asking: Is this safe? In a terse statement this week, academy officials said they will assemble a student committee to study changes to the Herndon Monument Climb. "Like...