Semper Fi Midshipman!

An interesting story in the Washington Post on a plebe at the Naval Academy. Not your typical freshman class. Not your typical Freshman.

"Eyes straight ahead, all the time!" the upperclassman barked.

Were it not for the silver-dollar-size scar on the inside of his elbow, the legacy of an AK-47 round, Jeffery Walker would look like any other freshman trying to survive the wrenching induction into the U.S. Naval Academy.

The wiry 20-year-old from Conover, N.C., calmly complied, following the yellow line taped to the floor of Alumni Hall on Tuesday. It marked the path to his new uniforms, to doctors' needles, to instructions on a proper salute and, ultimately, to becoming an officer.

Walker knows that no matter how exacting the next four years may be, no one will be shooting at him. Nor will he watch his fellow Marines spill blood on the streets of Fallujah.
"It won't be Iraq," he said.

Walker is part of a small but growing demographic of incoming cadets and midshipmen at the nation's service academies: combat veterans. He has the scar and the Purple Heart to prove it.