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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.
“This really is America’s bowl game,” he explained. “America realizes that the people out on the field are playing a game just for love of sport and a lot of them will be serving overseas in a time of war.”
For the service academy members, this is the contest that crowns their season. More importantly, though, the game showcases the purest of rivalries, one in which each side is uniquely aware of the sacrifice and service awaiting all players after graduation.
But that’s not to say both sides aren’t deeply invested in the outcome of the game.
For 2nd Lt. Ben Wynia, who graduated this year from the United States Military Academy at West Point, the week is defined by burning boats, midshipmen tied up and covered in shaving cream and a campus that permeates with “excitement unlike anything I’ve seen.”
“No matter how bad the football season has been, there’s always that glimmer of hope at the end of the year,” said Wynia, of a win over Navy, victorious in nine straight games. “But the first thing that comes to mind — it’s a chance for us to have pride. It’s about pride in who we are as soldiers, the deep feeling that we bring to the game.”
In 2001, the midshipmen endured a winless season that was polished off by a defeat to their bitter rivals. As the newly appointed Navy secretary, Gordon England was tasked with boosting morale with a postgame speech — it was the last time many of the players would wear football pads.
“You can imagine what it was like to be in that locker room,” he said, reflecting on the moment, which came just months after Sept. 11. “I told them ‘This is just a game. It’s not what it’s all about. It pales in comparison to your service to this country.'”
Sean Walker, who was a special forces unit member in Afghanistan, said soldiers would gather pillows around a television at 3 a.m. to watch the game from the Middle East.
The best part for Walker?
“That’s the only time you can drink beers,” he said. “Well, then and the Super Bowl. When you haven’t had it in so long, it tastes amazing.”
