Lee L. Walderman

W.C. Atkinson: "The parents know we ah one uh the last institutions in the countra that abides by the principles uh yestahyeah.”

It’s almost lunchtime at the Army and Navy Academy in Carlsbad. A group of young, uniformed cadets are out on the quad flying kites-the small, fast, multicolored kind. It seems such a peaceful spring scene, with the boys playing contentedly in the ocean breezes, laughing, their loose ties and shirttails waving free. Suddenly one of the cadets screams, “Gotcha, you mother! Dive! Dive!”

“Not yet you haven't! Ah, damn!”

Up in the sky there is the sound of kite sticks snapping and paper tearing, and one of the kites, shredded like a wounded hawk, flaps helplessly to the ground. “Ten points!”

“Yeah, all right ... ten points.”

Aerial dogfights. This is a military academy. What did you expect?

The Army and Navy Academy has been in San Diego County a long time. Founded in 1910 in Pacific Beach, it was moved to its present location, an incredibly valuable piece of land on the beach in Carlsbad, in 1936. The Academy offers instruction in grades 7 through 12, has a maximum enrollment of 250 students (many of them from foreign countries, particularly Latin American countries), and costs about $3800 for a nine-month year (a summer camp session is also available), plus about $1100 for extras.

For over 30 years the president of the Academy has been Colonel W. C. Atkinson-so long that in some ways he is not just the president of the Academy, but is the Academy.

Col. Atkinson is the perfect southern gentleman. He wears a small, well-manicured brush mustache, and speaks with a slight drawl. He's fond of telling stories of inspiration and of the achievements of his cadets. He’s well thought of by the cadets and has been nicknamed by them, affectionately. “Cap'n Matty.”

I told him I'd heard that militara academies were dying out in this country, dwindling in the last 30 years from 250 to about 50, and asked him what he thought about that.

“Well,” he said, taking his time, looking me squarely in the eyes and building a word model with his hands, “the problem has been with all independent institutions of learnin' and not just the military academies. They have been dyin' out; howevah, Ah've noticed in the last couple yeahs that they ah back on the upswing again.”

“Is your enrollment filled to capacity here?”

“It was at the beginnin' of the yeah, but we've lost a few an' dismissed a few. Ya see, we won't keep a problem student.”

“The rumor is that military academies are designed for problem kids. That isn't true?”

“Ah don't feel that it is, no. But ya see, the trouble is, the parents won't shoot straight with ya. We tell 'em at the staht we won't take a probationara case, that we won’t take a kid that's been on marijuana an' drugs. But they won't tell ya what a kid's been involved with befoh he gets heah. They believe the rumahs about militara schools and think we'll straighten 'im out.”

“Well, if it isn't for the discipline, why do parents send their sons here?”

“Ah'm glad you asked that. It's because the public schools ah not doin' theih jobs! They ah not teachin' the three Ah's. They slay the king's English. They all not teachin propah conduct. An' the parents know we will, because we ah one uh the last institutions in the countra that abides by the principals uh yestahyeah.”

“Colonel, why aren’t there any girls in the Academy?”

“Because we don't accept them. Howevah, Ah believe one day women's lib will see to it that it's a requisite for us ta have guhls heah befoh we ah eligible foh the R.O.T.C. It happened the same way with blacks.”

“How does the R.O.T.C. work, anyway?”

“Well, we have ta meet cehtain requihements ta be eligible. In ouh case it's the Ahmy R.O.T.C. The Ahmy gives us a full-time officeh, an N.C.O. rifles, maps, textbooks, an' so on.”

“And what do they receive in return?”

“Leadehship material from the boys we encourage to go on in the college R.O.T.C.. Annapolis, an' West Point.”

“How many boys from each class get into Annapolis or West Point?"

“About fouah each yeah."

My tour of the Academy begins with a stroll led by Mrs. Gomez of the business department. We peek in on the music room where a morose-looking boy is pumping away on the tuba, and a black kid is fooling around on the drums between classes. We inspect the crafts shop, overlooking a view of the ocean, and visit the swimming pools and tennis courts where the Senior Military Officer is overseeing a group of boys doing pushups. Mrs. Gomez tells me that she and the other women of the Academy like to feel that they serve as the boys' mothers while they're away from home. Some of the boys don’t get home too often-she points out one who is from Peru and hasn't been home in three years-and some of them need a mother. The women sponsor dances every few weeks or so, which girls from other schools can sign up for if they wish to attend. “We like to kind of screen the girls’ names, so we know who they are,’’ she explains.

Mrs. Gomez introduces me to Mr. Rowbatham from the business office, and he eagerly assumes the duties of tour guide. The scent of Old Spice wafts around us, as he shows me the sleeping quarters-a small room for two with bunk beds, bathroom, and closet-and explains somewhat vaguely that, “If a boy learns discipline in one area, it’s likely to carry over in another area as well.” He asks me if I would like to have lunch at the Academy, and I accept, with hesitation, remembering the rumors about military food. “I would compare our food here favorably with any institution in the country,” Mr. Rowbatham assures me.

“It's edible,” Cadet Renato Lebron, from the Philippines, explains at lunch, after Mr. Rowbatham chooses not to eat after all. The lunch consists of slightly gristly hamburger with gravy, hot rolls, two salads, milk, and ice cream. Lebron, a company commander (“Sort of a counselor’s job is what it is”), says that he was sent to the Academy after his family moved to San Diego, and there were too many kids at home. His mother owns an insurance company, so there is no problem affording the tuition.

“I liked the Academy from the first. I like the challenge of promotions, and I think I'm getting a better education here. The classes are smaller than in a public school, and there isn’t any racial prejudice. I walked into a public school once, and all the white kids were on one side of the room and all the blacks and Mexicans were on the other. That doesn't happen here, because we have to eat, sleep, and spend 24 hours with each other.”

“How about the discipline?” I ask.

“That’s not really what this place is all about. A lot of the discipline is done by the older boys. If a kid's taking drugs or something, we tell him not to. That’s a lot better than having a parent tell him not to, because he listens. A few years ago, parents were sending their kids here just to get rid of them; maybe they got in trouble or something; but now I think it’s more for career reasons.”

“Are you going into the military when you graduate?”

“No way,” he laughs. “I’ve already been-right here.”

Just then the librarian, a nice-looking young woman, passes down the center aisle of the mess, hall, and most of the cadets pause in their eating to do some gazing.

“You guys get to see enough girls around here?” I ask after she’s gone.

“Cheerleaders. We pick them ourselves. We just canned last semester’s because they were a buncha dogs.”

“Well, what about off campus?”

“Only the higher-ranking cadets are allowed off campus. But we don’t get along too well with the kids from the other schools anyway. They call us ‘Junior Jar-heads’ and ‘Bellhops.’ Our dances are pretty good though.”

I notice at the faculty table across the way that some of the instructors are in uniforms and some are in civilian clothes. “All the instructors used to be retired-military,” Lebron explains. “But there aren’t so many of them left anymore, so the Academy is hiring civilian teachers now.”

I go over and talk to a couple of young, mustached, brightly-dressed teachers eating popsicles.

I ask them what they’re doing in a military academy.

“Teaching. Why not? It may not be our first choice, but there are many more teachers than jobs these days, and we’re lucky to have jobs. The pays isn’t too good, though.”

“How does the education here compare with a public school?”

“My opinion is that it’s better. In a public school, the teacher spends half his time telling the kids to sit down and shut up. We don’t have to put up with that here. We can just kick them out.”

“Would you send your kids here?”

“Too expensive. What this place really is, is a boarding school for kids from wealthy families. Now there are a lot of ways to run a boarding school, and one of the more effective ways is as a military academy. It’s about as simple as that.”