The Plebe Trilogy

The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis is an institution entrusted with the training and motivation of the future leaders of our military and our nation. Every year more than one thousand new candidates enter Annapolis. They have been selected from more than 12,000 applicants. These are the plebes, and they come from every state in the union and from several foreign nations. They are the best that America's high schools produce, and they are outstanding young men and women. But they bring with them varied family backgrounds, multiple cultural roots, and often extreme differences in outlook and temperament. The duty of the Annapolis system is to indoctrinate the newcomers, and teach them to use these differences in background, personality, and talent to best advantage and in such a way that reflects the highest standards of moral and professional conduct. The service academies have had their share of scandals and negative publicity, and it sometimes feels like something has gone wrong with the system. But this book examines whether these negative events are a failure of the system, or a sign that the self-policing honor system - in effect for more than one hundred years - still works. The Plebe Trilogy tells the fictitious story of Plebe Year - the great crucible that separates the 'candidates' from the midshipmen. Specifically it is the story of one unusual group of first year midshipmen as they progress through Plebe Year in the late 1960s. It was a time when the social turmoil was mostly external, and young men and women were less inhibited by social and political correctness, and when each graduate considered mortality as a direct consequence of their career choice. The three novels that make up the trilogy develop the concepts of "Plebe Summer'" when the plebe group bonds as a unit through the painful reality of their new lives; "The Brigade", when the plebes become part of a much great whole and fight to be accepted; and "The Hundredth Night", when they must put into practice the lessons they have hopefully learned are published in this trilogy set.