Read Online Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman by Neal Thompson - Free Book Online Page B

another deficiency, a 2.44 in his combined English, history, and government class, called EHG.
    In addition to poor grades, Shepard was accumulating conduct demerits for breaking the strict rules of behavior and decorum. By the end of his plebe year he had racked up forty-nine demerits—a large number for a freshman—for infractions such as unshined shoes or being out of uniform. He earned another twenty-two through the fall of 1942, although he managed to talk his way out of many more than that.
    By late 1942 Shepard ranked 676th in his class of 1,000. Academics had usually come easy to him; rarely had Shepard struggled like this. Finally he was called before anacademic board to discuss his substandard performance. In a subsequent report the board noted that his poor grades made Shepard eligible for “reassignment.” That is, he could be dropped from the academy and sent to the Navy fleet—to war.
    Shepard knew all too well what that meant. A tuition-free academy education wasn’t a free ride. Graduates had to “pay” for the education with five years of service as a naval officer. If they failed to graduate, they’d repay their debt as an enlisted sailor. He’d become just some swab aboard some ship—an anonymous sailor among hundreds of other sailors. And his dreams of flying would be dashed. That day, though, the academic board decided to give Shepard another chance. He had until the end of the academic year—the spring of 1943—to bring up his grades, improve his behavior, andbasically get his shit together.
    If not, he’d be expelled and shipped to the Navy, which at the time was fighting dozens of bloody battles against Japanese-held islands in the South Pacific.

    Surprisingly, even the threat of expulsion didn’t at first impede one of Shepard’s most diligent extracurricular pursuits.
    The historic, cove-front fishing town of Annapolis (also Maryland’s state capital) was known to midshipmen as “Crab-town.” Its women were “crabs” or “crabbies,” and the town was teeming with them. As if making up for lost time, Shepard discovered what he’d been missing in high school. And, he learned in Annapolis, he had a knack for it.
    Because midshipmen weren’t allowed to have cars, the only escape was by foot. Shepard would wait until after lights-out, then sneak out of Bancroft Hall and down to the southern tip of campus. There a bulkhead held back Spa Creek and it was possible to edge carefully around the ten-foot stone wall that encircled the campus. Generations of midshipmen called it going “over the wall.” Doing it once was considered a rite of passage, but Shepard made a habit of it. Afterward he’d sneak back into his room, well past midnight, and slip into bed. One night an upperclassman was waiting for him and tacked another few demerits onto Shepard’s record.
    “He always had some chick he thought was worth the risk,” said upperclassman Dick Sewall, who wrote up a number of Shepard’s so-called frap sheets; in midshipman-speak, someone busted going over the wall was “frapped” or “fried.” Sewall admitted, though, that he often fell for Shepard’s diplomatic pleas for leniency and, as one of Shepard’s patron saints, ripped up a few of Shepard’s frap sheets.
    Midway through sophomore year, a year’s worth of push-ups and early-morning exercises, which were everyday chores of academy life, had helped fill out Shepard’s wiry frame. He was still slender and would remain so his whole life. But with a bit of extra muscle, he now carried himself not as a boy but as a full chested, strong-armed man.
    That physical maturity, combined with a precocious self-confidence, contributed to a reputation with women that absolutely amazed his classmates. And Shepard learned how to position himself in all the right social situations: He religiously volunteered to serve on the committees that organized the academy’s dances and hops.
    Shepard never missed a school dance and, on