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Title: The Golden Fleece
Subtitle: High-Risk Adventure at West Point
Author: Tom Carhart, Wesley K. Clark
Narrator: Tom Perkins
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
Language: English
Release date: 09-01-17
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Genres: History, American
Publisher's Summary:
In the fall of 1965, West Point cadet Tom Carhart and five of his classmates from the US Military Academy pulled off a feat of extraordinary ingenuity, precision, and raw guts: the theft of the billy goat mascot from their rival, the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, just before the biggest game of the year.
The US forces in Vietnam were then at 200,000 and growing, and the men in West Point's class of 1966 were well aware that they would serve, and quite possibly die, in that far-off war. But West Point's motto, "Duty, Honor, Country," affirms that its graduates will obey the decisions of our elected government, and the men of '66 were dutiful: of the 579 who graduated, 30 died in Vietnam, and roughly five times that number were wounded. Since this would be the men's last Army-Navy football game as cadets, they wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper.
Carhart tells the incredible true story of how, in stealing that Navy goat, the cadets unknowingly reenacted the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece from Greek mythology. The caper is interwoven with an insider's narrative about the private lives of six West Point cadets in the early 1960s, who, against all odds, hurled their last hurrah of triumph to America before flying off to fight the war in Vietnam.
Members Reviews:
Review of: The GOLDEN FLEECE, High â Risk Adventure at West Point.
Review of: The GOLDEN FLEECE, High â Risk Adventure at West Point.
By Tom Carhart West Point 1966
This book, well written by a â66 Grad who is an accomplished author, is about the purloinment â not an actual theft since the property would be returned after the escapade â of the mascot of The Midshipmen of The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis -- a goat named Billy XIV-- one week before the Army-Navy football game in 1965.
The book actually starts out that way, with the cadets who planned the project, including the author, reconnoitering the habitat of the animal at the most secure section of the Severna Park Naval Security Station (SPNSS) in Maryland.
The tale then swiftly changes to a very accurate and detailed rendition of cadet life at West Point â one of the very best that the reviewer has ever had the pleasure of reading â from the time a young man â no females were allowed until the 1970âs â entered on their first day, until graduation, 47 months later. It details just how difficult the operation would be to pull off, with the rules, regulations and lack of time facing West Point cadets.
Indeed the cadets did succeed in capturing the goat and housing him at a farm a few hours from West Point. Then they put out the word to other cadets that they had the Navy Goat, a fact later confirmed by radio and newspaper articles.
This information found its way to the academy Superintendent in record time. The man became almost apoplectic, ordering his chain of command to find the culprits. Pressure built, so the Goatnappers left after taps one night, brought their prize back to West Point and hid him in the Mule barn to get through the morning and present Goat to Corps at High Noon inside Washington Hall. But someone turned them in, and suddenly there were M.P.s everywhere.
The Navy Goat, having been found, was taken back to Annapolis in a convoy, so the six cadets decided to hold a rally, with Army/Navy weekend coming up.