<p>It is amazing how young some kids start. Last year on the first day of my new Sunday School class, a new fourth grader kept quizzing me about the Naval Academy. Finally, I asked him why the interest. He stated that he had ‘always’ wanted to go to the Academy. When I asked him why, he said he wanted to be the best Marine officer and that meant going to the Academy. I told him that he had just aced his BGO interview. His dad is a multi-deployed Marine reserve whose company commander is a USNA grad. Anyway, the next Sunday, after Sunday School, I gave him an armful of old Academy literature. Imagine my embarassment when I look up at the communion rail and there he is, kneeling, leafing through an old Academy catalog. His five person elementary school ‘battle of the brains’ team just won the county championship. He is on his way.</p>
<p>The past month or so, a little second grader has been bringing all his model airplanes to church and then proceeding to tell me all about them. Unfortunately an occassional AF jet was in the mix. Last Sunday after church I was cleaning house and came across a Navy table top aviation book. I gathered up everything I had and took them over to his house. No fear about the AF influence. He had a full-scale model of the Nimitz in the middle of the living room and had a pretty good grasp of cyclic ops. He called me back about five times as I was leaving to show me more of his planes. On the last callback he asked if it were possible for me to help him get ready for the Naval Academy. Completely unsolicited. A second grader.</p>