
DATE: Wednesday, August 13, 1997            TAG: 9708130444

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: The Virginian-Pilot has been following the progress of

        Chesapeake's Megan Keith since her arrival at the Naval Academy in

        Annapolis.

SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: ANNAPOLIS                         LENGTH:  200 lines

NAVY RIGORS TOUGHEN CHESAPEAKE GIRL MEGAN KEITH IS UNDERGOING THE TRANSITION FROM CIVILIAN TO MILITARY LIFE.

It is, in fact, possible to do push-ups while on crutches.

It is also necessary for some plebes at the United States Naval Academy, who have run up stairs and down halls and along roads until their foot bones have cracked under the pressure.

That's the only thing that has cracked on Keith, Megan V., Class of '01, from Chesapeake, Va. And she refused the crutches.

Six weeks of plebe summer have come and gone since 18-year-old Megan and 1,174 others entered the academy as the Class of 2001. It has been a sea change for many, including Megan.

Her basset hound eyes are gone. She strides with purpose. She wears white garters to hold her socks up and her shirt down and anyone who thinks that's funny should check out the silver ``expert'' pistol-shooting ribbon on that perfectly tucked uniform shirt.

They call her Snow White. And they'd better smile when they say it.

Glen Keith stood on the stadium sideline in the predawn dark and searched for his petite daughter among the perspirants.

The pace of morning ``phys ed'' seemed inhuman. ``On your feet! Straighten out!'' an upperclassman screamed at the plebes. ``Hey, we're not kissin' mom or daddy! You're ours now! Let's go!''

Six hours remained until liberty on Parents' Weekend, the first chance for plebes to leave the academy since arriving July 1. This exercise session was the parents' first glimpse of young adults who had been children just six weeks before.

``Down 1! Down 2! Down 3! Down 4!'' the upperclassmen barked. ``How come you look so good today? Down 5! Down 6! Down 7!

Down 30. 40. 50.

``On your feet!''

The plebes cheered. They fell on their stomachs to swim in place, rolled on their backs for bicycle kicks.

``Make it burn, make it burn!'' a midshipman ordered. A male plebe folded in the middle of the next set of push-ups. A female blew her nose in time with the cadence.

Around their struggling bodies, the field was littered with discarded crutches and olive drab canteens. One, two, three, one. One, two, three, two. One, two, three, three.

Turn on the video camera, a watching father urged his wife, as plebes did majorette kicks down the field and duck-walks back up, then monkey walked, their backs hunched, their arms dangling, hooting as they went.

``Well, I will,'' she replied, ``but I don't want to get them looking so stupid.''

Glen had spotted Megan in the front row. She did seven push-ups for every 10 that were counted. A middie dropped in front of her and did double-time push-ups. Megan ignored him and stuck to her rhythm, then cheered and clapped and chanted ``Oh-one! Oh-one! Oh-one!'' with the rest of her class.

A mother hugged herself and remarked, to no one, how hard the plebes were working. Another supposed: ``That's why the academy's got to be something that they really want.''

The plebes joined hands, their exercise over. Lee Greenwood music rolled from loudspeakers: ``I'm proud to be an American. At least I know I'm free.''

They raised their hands over their heads. ``And I won't forget the men who died, who gave their lives for me.''

No longer gasping for breath, plebe voices swelled. ``There ain't no doubt I love this land. God bless the USA!''

On the sidelines, cameras whirred and clicked.

Megan's mom and stepfather didn't make it to 6 a.m. phys ed, nor to noon formation on the parade field, but they overcame traffic and lack of parking to make it to the gingko tree where last-name-K plebes were to meet their parents.

Six long weeks. They were eager for a look.

Keith '01 was crisp and brisk in summer whites, the creases in her pants sharp enough to cut a caper. Not that a plebe would ever even think about capering.

``How ya doin', girl?'' her stepfather, Cliff Vaught, said. He stepped back and studied her. ``Midshipman girl.''

Megan fretted briefly over bits of grass sticking to her white shoes. She showed off the front pockets in her pants to her father and stepfather, neither of whom had had pockets in their pants when they were plebes in the 1970s.

Some things about plebe life had not changed. ``Dad, was your I.D. card really bad?'' Megan asked. ``Mine's worse. I look like I'm scared to death.''

Shades of July 1, a time past. Now Megan led her family across campus. Her mother, Annette, didn't even try to keep the pace.

``You walk faster now, dear,'' Annette exclaimed when she finally caught up.

``Yeah, well, they make me.''

Her father assessed her thoughtfully.

``Some of the way she's always been is a little more intensified,'' Glen Keith said. ``She's always been direct and purposeful and got things done. But now the academy's told her it's OK to be that way. So now she's even more Megan.''

The purpose of plebe summer is, very simply, to help these people make the transition from civilian life to the military life.''

Academy Commandant Capt. William T.R. Bogle was reassuring his audience of parents, many of them dressed in official ``Dad - U.S. Naval Academy'' ballcaps, official ``Sister'' T-shirts, or carrying official ``Mom'' tote bags that advertised the name of every plebe in microscopic type.

``This has been one of the finest summers that I think we've had here,'' the commandant declared: Only 87 people of the 1,175 that entered on July 1 had dropped out.

One of them was Megan's roommate. A letter from her, postmarked Texas, was waiting in Megan's mailbox. The Naval Academy, Megan noted sagely, is not for everyone.

True enough. It's for the person who can take sleep deprivation, verbal abuse, look-alike sailor suits, white-glove dust inspections, zero soft drinks and life without shopping malls.

Megan had learned to rise at 5 a.m., cover an obstacle course and sail a boat. She'd learned to eat efficiently, to march, to run a black sock over the shower stall in search of soap scum.

She'd run everywhere she'd gone until her feet fractured, and after that she'd gone to the pool, jumped in wearing full camouflage gear, and swum with her belongings held over her head. She had become accustomed to chanting with her fellow plebes in response to the tender entreaties of upperclassmen - chants like, ``Sir, we are not boneheads, sir.''

But now came liberty, and Megan had been mall-deprived long enough. Her first stop was at a hair salon, to remedy the lopsided cut a Navy barber had given her on Induction Day. Her second stop was at Victoria's Secret.

Megan's dorm room, shared with two other girls, was decorated in Early American Military - which is to say that it was not decorated at all.

Towels were folded in thirds, shoes had the laces tucked inside, bulletin boards displayed no personal items. Even the cleaning supplies - and there were many of them - were in perfect formation. Parsons' Ammonia. Clorox. Mop and Glo. Lysol. Pledge. Windex. Brasso. Two colors of Restore polish, ``The Miracle Hi-Gloss Shoe Cleaner.''

Megan's room must be ``rigged for sea'' every time she leaves it - lights off, cupboards closed, everything put away. She glanced in a neighbor's room and raised her eyebrows.

``There's a bowl and a spoon sitting in that room,'' she sniffed.

No doubt it would be noticed by others. Feedback, positive or negative, is quick and direct at the academy. Plebes may suffer exhaustion, wrestle with stress or pine for home, but never do they experience neglect.

So it was that when Megan failed by 2 1/2 minutes to meet the qualifying time in the 1.5-mile run, an instructor ran with her, helping her pick up her pace. She beat the cut-off by 30 seconds.

Her pistol instructor had bet her a McDonald's meal that she couldn't make a perfect score first time out. Megan answered that she couldn't leave the yard, even if she won, so he bet her a Sprite.

She blew the center out of the target, and he turned his head while she tossed down the forbidden soft drink.

Not all of her coaching had been so positive. Over the summer she had learned - sometimes the hard way - to keep her thoughts in her head, her tongue in her mouth and an expression off her face. A midshipman caught her looking from side to side as she went through the dorm one day. She ended up at attention, chanting, ``I like this place, I love this place, I think I want to buy it.''

She had learned, too, to wriggle her kneecaps while standing at attention, to flex her leg muscles without moving her pant leg, to keep the blood circulating.

Not everyone had. At the weekend's dress parade, several plebes standing at attention with 12-pound, bayonet-tipped M-1 rifles on their shoulders fainted in the noon heat. They folded just as they were taught, onto a knee before gracefully collapsing to one side.

One plebe swayed, nodded his head twice and vomited, but refused to leave formation.

``They're entering a warrior's trade,'' the commandant said bluntly. ``We want to create a tough and spartan-like environment, we want them to learn to get along with what they have.

``This is a demanding and difficult summer and it's meant to be like that.''

Megan, it seemed to Glen Keith, was holding up well. ``My dad would be so proud of Megan,'' he said, watching his daughter shout, ``MOTIVATED! DEDICATED! OO-RAH!'' over dinner. ``He died a few years ago, but he's here today.''

And then, all too quickly, before the freedom of life outside the yard had had time to grow comfortable, liberty was ending.

Snow White was lining up beside male plebes, all looking Sleepy and Grumpy, and the midshipman in command was stretching his mouth to an unnatural shape and bellowing from the gut, ``Baaattall-YUN!''

Parents, craning silently in the bleachers, raised their cameras. And in perfect step, behind stern-faced mids striding with sabers pointed skyward, the plebes got back to work.

M-1 on her shoulder, blue ribbon on her chest, Megan marched back into the restrictive life of the Naval Academy. Academic classes begin in just a few days. The next liberty will be at Thanksgiving.

Her aunt, Lonni Rossi, lowered her camera. ``I think she just seems more sure of herself,'' Rossi mused.

``Yes, she's a different girl than she was six weeks ago.'' ILLUSTRATION: TAMARA VONINSKI color photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Megan Keith hugs her brother, Josh Keith, 13, and cousin, Jonathan

Rossi, 10...

Daily exercise...Here Megan Keith...

Megan Keith...

Annette Vaught, left, tries to get the attention of her daughter,

Megan Keith... KEYWORDS: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY MILITARY ACADEMIES

NAVAL ACADEMIES