Ready for Duty

At the U.S. service academies last week it was the Army's 161st graduation, the Navy's 109th, the Coast Guard's 73rd, the Air Force's first (TIME. June 1)--and each in its way was unlike any in memory. Items:

P: All classes graduated on the same day. By so doing, all newly commissioned officers (630 Navy, 446 Army, 331 Air Force, 79 Coast Guard) started seniority at the same time. Reason: growing armed forces unification and the need for an equalizer when officers of different services meet in unified jobs.

P: Under a new law, 12 1/2%; of each Army, Navy or Air Force class was authorized to enter another service for the first time. The Marine Corps got an all-academy class of 65 men from other services, including seven West Pointers, who were the first to become marines upon graduation since the early 19th century. The Army gave 43 more graduates to the Air Force. The Air Force lost one man to the Marines, sent most of its new 2nd lieutenants (all qualified navigators) on to pilot training. Swapping hit the Navy hardest: 57 Annapolis graduates (including the No. 1 man) chose the Marines. 83 the Air Force, six the Army. As 10,000 Annapolis spectators laughed, the Army's Lieut. General James F. Collins swore in the ex-midshipmen, cracked nautically: "Welcome aboard!''

P:The traditional cap tossup into spectators' hands began sheepishly at the new Air Academy. A few brave graduates tossed; the rest finally followed. At West Point, caps soared as they have for generations--and for the last time. Next year West Pointers will have to keep their caps after graduation and not waste them on civilians.

P: West Point captured five Rhodes scholarships--equaled only by Harvard. The Air Academy came through with one. Cadet Bradley C. Hosmer, first man of the first class. But Annapolis and the Coast Guard Academy got no Rhodes scholarships at all; it became clear years ago that a new ensign who accepts a Rhodes forfeits time at sea and mysteriously never catches up in rank with his class.

P: Academically, star football players ranged the field. The Air Academy's first All-American, Tackle and Captain Brock Strom, graduated No. 7 in his class. Strom is going to M.I.T. for postgraduate training (astronautics). West Point's celebrated All-American Halfback Pete Dawkins, a Rhodes Scholar and future infantryman who will attend paratroop training school this summer before leaving for England, ranked No. 10. But West Point's mighty Tackle Maurice Hilliard barely managed to squeeze into a commission by holding down the "goat's'' last place. Less fortunate was Navy's All-American Tackle Bob Reifsnyder, who graduated in last place as Annapolis' "anchor man." Reifsnyder got no commission because of football injuries and high blood pressure, instead will go where such defects are no handicap--the Los Angeles Rams.

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