Retired Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing remembers huddling around a short-wave radio three decades ago listening to the Army-Navy football game. With each turn of the USS Tripoli, the radio would lose signal, adding to the tension with each silent moment.

For Wensing, who will see the game in person this year, those memories have never disappeared. It’s a defining moment, those few hours around the radio listening to a game that means so much more than all the others.