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A Grain of Salt Posts

Halloween in the Hall

50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 40 For most of the year, the Naval Academy told us exactly what to wear. On Halloween, things got interesting. Even as a plebe, the night had a particular energy. Every class, every company had some costume fun. Company Officers sometimes brought their children through the halls in costume. The treat was wearing something different. The tricks were still ahead. Dressing up at the Academy in my time…

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The Decision

50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 39 Debbie, my USNA roommate, had moved back to Annapolis. That fact alone set something in motion. We fell into a rhythm of lunch every couple of weeks, the kind that stretches past two hours without noticing. We were also approaching the 50th anniversary of women at the service academies, which had a way of pulling the past into the present conversation whether you invited it or not.…

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Those Who Came Before

50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 38 I was an ignorant, self-important mid. I can say that now, almost fifty years later. I thought our burden as early women at the Academy was the heaviest one anyone had carried. I was a teenager. Teenagers think that. The law changed in 1975. Women could enter the Naval Academy in 1976. The Academy knew what that meant, and it began stationing naval officers with strong records…

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Well, Bless Me

50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 37 It’s football season, and Navy football holds many memories for me. One of them involves a president. In the early 1950s, my father, Frank Andrews, was the commissioning commanding officer of the USS Barracuda (SSK-1), a small experimental anti-submarine warfare submarine. His engineering officer was a young Jimmy Carter. They shared a wardroom. In 1976, the bicentennial year, I campaigned for Carter while still in high school. I…

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A No-Drop Life

50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 36 “It’s a class ride, not a race. We won’t drop you or leave you behind.” A classmate said that to me five years ago, before my first reunion bike ride. I wasn’t a cyclist. My 40th reunion was approaching, and Tony had organized a class ride. I asked my personal trainer, a young woman I had once coached who had become an athletic trainer herself, whether biking might…

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The Women One Year Ahead

50 Stories for 50 Years — Post 35 Recently, at my 45th reunion, we were standing in line to get into the football stadium talking with my classmates when one of my male classmates asked me a question: “Did any of the women ahead of you help you out?” A simple question. It didn’t have a fast answer. For the first women at USNA, every step meant figuring out how to be a new first,…

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