Get to the Point of History in Upstate New York

Welcome to the U.S. Military Academy, where, as a popular T-shirt proclaims: “The history we teach was made by the people we taught.”

And if there is one thing West Point has, it’s history.

On this fortified granite plateau commanding the most spectacular stretch of New York’s mighty Hudson River, the past marches crisply into the present and on into the future.

The Long Gray Line, as the unbroken 188-year procession of cadets is known, reaches back to our nation’s very roots; cadets enrolled now will lead the U.S. Army into the 21st Century.

From its ranks have come our greatest warrior chiefs: Douglas MacArthur, Dwight David Eisenhower, George S. Patton, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee. All were groomed for the mantle of leadership here, in the unforgiving crucible of America’s Sparta.

The days of cruel hazing as a form of initiation are gone. Plebes, as freshmen are called, no longer endure paddling, forced feedings, sliding naked down splintered boards or running gauntlets of upperclassmen with buckets of ice water at the ready.

But there is still something unyielding in the chill granite walls of West Point. The place is grimly serious, a monastery for the military.

Every shoe is shiny, every posture perfect, every salute snappy. On the parade grounds, men and women become machines in full dress uniform, marching with the precision of a Swiss watch. And they must, because their every misstep is noted by a grandstand team of cadets with binoculars and scorecards. Tradition is all.

Sited in the heart of the Hudson Highlands, West Point is hemmed in by mountains: Bear and Breakneck, Storm King and Anthony’s Nose knuckle down to the river like opposing stone linebackers.

This spectacular setting frames the academy’s Trophy Point, where the so-called Million Dollar View is cheapened by some gleaming white eyesores upstream at Newburgh. But it’s still a stopper.

Studded with booty from wars, captured cannons mostly, Trophy Point hosts outdoor concerts on summer Sundays. The open band shell’s backdrop, the Million Dollar View and the crumbling ramparts of Revolutionary War-era battlements, is unbeatable.

The area around Trophy Point was fortified during the Revolutionary War. The colonists selected it as the ideal spot to defend the river from the British, whose strategy called for controlling the Hudson, which was for them a back door to the Colonies.

But the flaw in the crown’s plan was the z-turn at West Point. The river bends forced sailing ships to a virtual halt as they tacked back and forth to negotiate the turns. Once slowed, the ships were perfect targets for a murderous bombardment laid down by the colonists’ cannons.

To further discourage the British, the colonists deployed a massive chain, each link two feet long, 114 pounds and forged of steel thick as a wrist, across the river to prevent the passage of ships. The British never tested the fortifications. A length of that chain is still displayed at Trophy Point.

Outside the gates of the academy lies what may be the biggest lure for military buffs, the West Point Museum.

Once the repository for arms captured at Saratoga during the Revolution, its collection includes everything from a knife chipped out of stone to the casing from a nuclear bomb. Also on exhibit is a bit about the history of West Point, complete with odd but inexplicable items, such as an apple petrified by radiation and a Civil War surgeon’s kit.

Troops have been stationed at West Point since the Revolution, making it the oldest continuously occupied fort in the nation. West Point became a military academy in 1802, when war clouds over Europe encouraged our young country to secure its future by founding a school to train military leaders.

For some visitors the view at Trophy Point is reason enough to stop by the academy. Other single-minded tourists in the fall head for Michie Stadium and its football games. Sports Illustrated magazine once dubbed West Point one of the nation’s 10 most scenic spots for watching football.

Nothing shows West Point’s passion for competition more than football, especially Army-Navy football. That match between the forces of land and sea is held annually on neutral ground, but at West Point you are never far from a “Beat Navy” sign. You’ll find them permanently inscribed on stairways, on rooftops, on bleachers, on walls.

The significance of that competitive drive was summed up by MacArthur, who as a former director of the academy, composed this verse:

Upon the fields of friendly strife,

Are sown the seeds,

That, upon other fields, on other days,

Will bear the fruits of victory.

West Point’s selfless soul is perhaps best embodied in the hilltop Cadet Chapel, a soaring granite cathedral that surveys the Point like a sullen sentry. Lauded for its handsome architecture, the chapel’s massive scale dwarfs the individual, making man seem insignificant.

Draped with battle flags from wars and warmed by light streaming through stained-glass windows depicting biblical warriors, the interior features endless ranks of pews, prayer books and hymnals lined up with military precision.

But despite its austerity, the chapel becomes in May and June a veritable wedding factory. Cadets are not permitted to marry until they have received their diplomas; post-graduation nuptials are held almost hourly for several weeks. It is a long walk down the aisle to the altar, and while one of the world’s largest pipe organs plays the wedding march, brides have ample opportunity to reconsider the wisdom of marrying into the Army.

The spiritual heritage of West Point is better preserved in the Old Cadet Chapel, moved brick, pillar and pew from its original site to its new home next to the West Point cemetery.

The Greek Revival-style church and its red-carpeted, columned interior appears an inner sanctum for what must be the almost mystic brotherhood of cadets. Captured cannons, the now-silenced voices of enemies, are embedded in the walls, as are marble plaques commemorating leaders of wars.

One with the name and date of death gouged away is dedicated to the traitor Benedict Arnold, remembered for his Revolutionary War victory at nearby Saratoga, but despised for plotting to let West Point fall into enemy hands a few years later.

The nearby cemetery provides an eternal resting place for men such as Maj. Gen. George A. Custer, Col. Edward H. White (the first man to walk in space, later killed in a fire aboard an Apollo 1 spacecraft) and Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals (“Builder of the Panama Canal”).

There are some strange graves here, but none odder than the pyramid guarded by a pair of sphinxes that houses the body of Brig. Gen. Egbert L. Viele. Viele had a phobia about being buried alive. He installed a buzzer in the tomb so that, in case of mistaken burial, he could rise from his casket, press the button and summon the cemetery’s caretaker. The buzzer has rung many times; pressing it with a lengthy pole was long a favored prank of cadets.

Such pranks help relieve the stresses of a totally regimented life style. One of the most storied stunts involves the disappearance of the reveille gun, a heavy black cannon fired to mark the start and end of each day.

It was weeks before the cannon finally turned up atop a tower across campus, and even then it took a squad of men several days to lower the cannon down to earth and bolt it back into place. Though the mechanics behind the heist remain a mystery, according to the story the mastermind was none other than cadet Douglas MacArthur.

Edgar Allan Poe, who once attended the academy, went a bit further. Seems the lad had a penchant for the macabre. Guard duty in the mortuary, which was beneath the chapel, was his prize assignment. Under his watchful eye, corpses would be sent soaring upward--during services--via a basement trap door.

Or they would turn up seated at attention in the mess hall, or under the covers of his roommate’s bed. Such jokes were tolerated, but Poe’s reporting for a parade wearing a sword--and nothing else--was not, and he was expelled.