God challenges us like this
Today at the academy I watched formation. That’s when the corps of cadets (i.e. all the students) assembles by unit in the promenade and subjects itself to inspection and random drug tests. That’s right, drug tests. This has got to be one of the only colleges in the country where the rate of drug use is higher among the faculty than the students (except perhaps Humboldt State, where it’s probably 100% across the board). But drug testing is a requirement to work on board a United States ship so nobody really has a choice in the matter.
Another strange maritime fact, this one a cold war relic of Nixonian-sounding origins, is that to this day the United States neither admits or denys that it carries nuclear warheads on any of her ships. That is to say the U.S. government will not officially deny that our training ship, which was originally commissioned as one of three special oceanographic vessels for the Navy, is not armed with nukes as it sails around the world every summer. Because of this, the country of New Zealand has declined to let our ship–or any ship affiliated with the U.S. government–call in their ports. We did stop there a few years ago, when a more sympathetic Kiwi administration was experimenting with a rollback in that policy. Then 9/11 happened and stuff.
Anyways formation is cute. There is some yelling and the kids stand at attention. If they look really bad they may get demerits.