MacArthur learned here, and Eisenhower and Robert E. Lee and the 4,000 currently attending. They are Army. They are why I now understand. The blanket at the foot of the bed in John Johnson's barracks room is a perfectly folded rectangle, its crease facing toward the pillow. Johnson has a pair of boots and two pairs of shoes beneath the bed, lined up in flawless formation, side by side, toes pointing out, polished to a high gloss, boots always on the far right.
Football does matter at West Point.
He is 21 years old, a former all-state football player at Wyoming High. He could have gone to Dayton to play football. He could have played at Purdue, where they offered him an engineering scholarship. Instead, Johnson chose to come here. I wanted to challenge myself.