Chapter 14 "Some young men and women are just meant to be ­here, I''m not talking about the overachieving cadets, either. I''m talking about the ones that get here and everything is just right. They may not have known it before they got here, but something goes off, and they know this is the place for them." -Major Chad Bagley, October 4, 2011 Larry Dixon was looking for someone to hug. He had just scored the first touchdown of his collegiate career, a two-yard burst straight up the guts of the Tulane defense to tie the score. He crashed into offensive tackle Mike McDermott's chest and then banged helmets with guard Matt Villanti. He threw his arm around Raymond Maples and accepted a handshake from Trent Steelman. Larry was beaming.

He had put the Black Knights on the scoreboard for the first time this afternoon. He would go on to average five yards a carry, pick up a big third down in one scoring drive, and catch a twenty-five-yard pass to set up another touchdown. Larry was one of the stars in Army's 45-6 victory over the Green Wave. He finally felt that he had contributed to his team and that he belonged on the field against Division I opponents. In the previous three weeks, Larry had felt the game moving way faster than he was. Holes opened in an instant and then closed before he got there. Every time he got hit, it seemed harder than the hit he took the previous time. Larry had expected that there would be a learning curve; that had certainly been the case at the Academy prep school, where the athletes on the junior varsity teams from places like Fairleigh Dickinson and Navy Prep were bigger and faster than any he had faced in high school.

Larry had not figured, however, that it was going to be as steep as it proved against Northern Illinois, San Diego State, and Northwestern. He felt as if he were a boy playing against men. Against Tulane, though, all that changed and everything snapped into place like the Legos he had played with as a child. Larry had demonstrated the power and explosiveness that Coach Ellerson had touted the previous spring when Larry was still in prep school. Larry was a handful on the field, pure and simple, and was among the reasons Army had put in a wishbone formation this season to complement its triple option. Ellerson finally had a stable of big, punishing backs-Jared Hassin, Raymond Maples, Terry Baggett, and Hayden Tippett in addition to Larry-who had the vision to see holes open and the bodies to hurt the defenders who tried to plug them. The triple option relied on the backs cutting through and running away from the defense; the wishbone was about giving the backs a five-yard head start and then blasting into the defense like a missile. There was more potential for violence.

There was more potential for hurt, which kept defenses on their heels. Against Tulane, the wishbone had helped eleven different Army running backs roll to 353 rushing yards and a six-touchdown outburst. It had pulled the Black Knights' record to a respectable 2-3 and had taken their postseason hopes for another bowl game off life support. Even better, it had made for a more festive postgame tailgate. It eliminated the "what went wrong" questions and armchair analysis that accompanied the hot dogs and brats and potato salad after losses. The postgame tailgate was as good as it got in terms of a social outing for cadets, especially the Plebes like Larry. They rarely got off-post, so wandering around the plateaus of parking lots and the grass oasis near the Lusk Reservoir was something all cadets enjoyed. The parents of various teammates were anchored in "A" Lot, right above Michie Stadium, and for hours after the game groups of players shuttled among the various buffets.

Larry smiled as he accepted their congratulations and piled his plate higher with food. The parents of the Cows and Firsties often were able to take their sons out to dinner, usually just outside the Academy's gates along Main Street in Highland Falls. There were a half dozen or so taverns and saloons like Schade's and the Park, where sandwiches, steaks, and heaping plates of pasta brought in the postgame crowd. Farther down the road at Hacienda, the crowd was younger and included Firsties out to blow off some steam with cheap margaritas. Then there was the Thayer Hotel, which was West Point's on-post Ritz-Carlton in the sense that it was where alumni and overnighters congregated for fine dining at MacArthur's Restaurant or cocktails at the adjacent General Patton's Tavern. There was even the semi-hip Zulu Time Lounge on the rooftop overlooking the Hudson. The rules for cadet drinking were straightforward enough-you could indulge if you were twenty-one years old, as long as you were not in uniform and did not do so in excess. The Black Knights were mostly a dry bunch during the fall semester, with little time and less inclination to ply their broken-down bodies with beer or stay out late at night.

Come spring, however, with New York City a short train ride away and the beaches of the Bahamas and Cancún beckoning, it was another story, especially for the older guys like Erz, whose mentors at West Point had taught him that the weekend passes and leave for Christmas, spring, and summer were precious. It turned cadets into exotic travelers who thought nothing of hopping a cheap flight to Iceland or Europe or the Caribbean if there was a bargain ticket available. In the locker room, Larry listened to his older teammates as they talked of excursions to Montreal and Aspen and Paris and London. He smiled and laughed but didn't contribute to the conversation. He followed the chain of command up at Kimsey as well, partly because he felt that he had no standing as a Plebe and backup, and partly because it was just easier. The football team was a brotherhood within a brotherhood, and democracy reigned in the football center far more than it did any place else on campus. Still, Larry figured if he didn't say much, then he wouldn't say the wrong thing, and if he watched and listened he would get a little better each day. For Larry, practice was an escape, a perfect one from the total immersion that West Point demanded.

For a couple of hours at least, his noisy brain got quiet, and anxiety about problem sets and rules and regulations evaporated. He hid behind his helmet, bit into his mouth guard, and gave his head over to his gut. He was naturally on high alert on the football field, his instinct launching him into action, leading him into holes, pulling his shoulder low into a tackler. Larry didn't have to puzzle and think on the field as he did the rest of the day. Being a Division I fullback was a picnic compared to being a West Point Plebe. The Black Knights were in high spirits after the victory over Tulane. They had played well, washing the doubt that had lingered after being destroyed by Ball State. Larry knew he had been a major part of that victory.

The Black Knights needed four more wins to be eligible for a bowl game, and the vibe in the locker room was that this goal was attainable. They could move closer to it on Saturday, October 8, against Miami in Oxford, Ohio. Larry was confident he could help his team do that as well. All Larry wanted to do in the meantime was lose himself in practice and count the days to Thanksgiving when he could go home and see his mom and his older sisters, Karisha and Shakira. They had come to West Point a month earlier for the San Diego State game, and it had been one of the proudest moments in both mother's and son's lives. Discipline and determination had helped Laura Ashley to the second-highest level of chief petty officer in the Navy, and she had imparted those virtues to her children. Shakira had graduated from the Art Institute of Seattle and, with her husband, Matt Jarin, was raising their eight-month-old son, Liam. Karisha was married to Staff Sergeant James Stanley and they, too, were living in the Seattle area with their children, Kiyanna, twelve years old, and six-year-old Marcus.

Sergeant Stanley was in a recruiting office after serving his third combat tour, his second in Afghanistan. Larry's mom had demanded accountability from all of her children when Larry was a kid. She knew exactly where he was, who he was with, and when he was going to be home. There was no roaming the streets or hanging out. She knew Larry's friends and their parents. She did not allow idle time in her home. Larry's outlet was sports. For his sisters, it was part-time jobs and art classes.

Larry was in junior high school when his parents divorced, for which he blamed his mother and rebelled against her authority. He took out his anger with hostile exchanges, flagrant disobedience, and "a lot of weekends that I spent at home in my room as punishment," Larry recalled. But none of that had mattered when his mom came to West Point. She and Larry walked the campus, breathed in its history, and, when Larry took the field against San Diego State, shared a warm heart and a few tears. "It was really emotional," said Larry. "She got to see how all my dreams had come true. And she gave me those dreams and believed in me and gave me what I needed to climb that mountain." Now, a month later, Larry was homesick and wanted to hug his mom.

He needed some relief from the grind. He may have been one of the stars of the Tulane game, but among his fellow cadets in D Company he was just another lowly Plebe learning how to be a follower. He stayed close to the walls of the building as he walked with his hands cupped at his side and greeted everyone who crossed his path by name. Those were the rules, and o.