The Brigade — Hank Turowski

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 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 Brigade, the second book in the trilogy, describes in vivid detail when the plebes become part of a much great whole and fight to be accepted.