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- The Naval Academy’s freshmen class scaled the slippery Herndon monument in just over an hour on Monday.
- Their accomplishment sheds their status as "plebes" and marks the culmination of plebe year. They’ll be promoted to midshipmen third class when the seniors graduate later this week.
- It may have only taken an hour, but the struggle to climb the grease-slathered obelisk is epic and arduous.
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One final challenge stands in the way of US Naval Academy freshman shedding their status as lowly "plebes": A 21-foot-tall granite monument with a round, "Dixie" hat on top.
Scaling it and replacing the sailor hat with a midshipmen’s officer-like hat would be pretty straightforward if upperclassmen didn’t slather the Herndon monument with vegetable shortening.
Annapolis’ freshmen this year scaled the slimed monument at a fast pace. Christian Schwien, Class of 2022, replaced the hat at the top in an hour, 5 minutes, and 5 seconds.
That’s not record pace, but it is nearly four times faster than the slowest effort on record: 4 hours and 5 minutes. Looking at you, Class of 1998.
Here’s a look at this tough, memorable, and, yes, disgusting rite of passage.
Scaling the slippery monument takes a lot of teamwork.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
The tradition began decades ago when plebes returning from their last military parade would peel off and scale the memorial. They could do it very quickly, until upperclassmen got tricky and started to grease the monument’s sides in the 1970s.
The monument is greased with as much as 50 pounds of vegetable shortening. To get a grip, the plebes climb up on the shoulders of their classmates and hold on as long as they can as others step onto their shoulders.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Upperclassmen leave taunts in the vegetable shortening that can demoralize the plebes.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Source: Business Insider – sfellman@businessinsider.com (Sam Fellman)