Free Republic

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) -- Longtime Air Force football coach Fisher DeBerry announced his retirement Friday after 27 years with the Falcons, the last 23 as head coach. He guided the Falcons to three conference championships but his tenure ended with three consecutive losing seasons, the first such skid in his tenure at the school. In a prepared statement, the 68-year-old DeBerry called his resignation "the hardest decision I've ever made in my life."

Imagine these scenarios: A junior female soldier has an affair with an infantry officer in Iraq. When the relationship cools she revengefully accuses him of sexual assault. Her e-mailed complaint activates the Office of the Victim Advocate in the Pentagon. OVA officials pressure the accused officer’s commander to remove him from his unit on the eve of battle. At the Naval Academy, a female midshipman willingly parties with a classmate. Both have broken rules against alcohol and sex in Bancroft Hall, but to escape punishment she accuses him of sexual assault. The male midshipman is threatened with criminal prosecution and...

As the newest students at the nation’s four U.S. service academies start their classes this month, they may not realize they had a slight advantage — they benefited from a shrinking pool of applicants. All of the schools saw a drop in prospective students, with the Air Force Academy (search) experiencing the most drastic change — a 23 percent decline from last year. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point (search) fared the best with a 9 percent drop in applicants, according to figures provided by the academy. The declines are notable because, with the exception of the Coast Guard...

WEST POINT, N.Y. - Applications are down at the nation's military academies, though administrators say the drop has been caused by factors other than any chilling effect from the war in Iraq. West Point applications were off 11 percent as of Oct. 21 compared to a year earlier. The U.S. Naval Academy posted a 20 percent drop by the same week and the U.S. Air Force Academy reported a 9 percent drop compared to early October of last year. The numbers are not final because application deadlines for the classes entering service academies in fall 2005 are still months away....