Duty, honor, country

U.S. military academy taps Whitefish seniors

There's nothing halfway about Chase Giacomo. And there's nothing less than top-shelf about Matt Krause.

Together, the young men are giving their school a reason to salute as they become the first Whitefish High School seniors in memory to accept appointments to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

"We decided we want to be the best," said Krause, who sits in the top of the pack academically and athletically. "So if you want to be the best, you go to the best place."

Earlier, he had made up his mind to accept appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. But then, what he thought would be a wasted free trip to West Point turned his ship around.

Giacomo was focused on West Point from the start.

"I prayed … and I honestly felt that's what I was supposed to do - to apply and speak out that it would happen," Giacomo said.

He's a great soccer player and star debater but concedes that his A's and B's throughout high school could have put him low on the West Point admissions list. Still, he said, he kept the faith that God had bigger plans.

In June, Krause and Giacomo will trade their summer vacations for the nation's oldest military academy when they travel to New York and become the lowest of the best - plebes at the Army's training ground for future leaders.

For them, starting at the bottom is no problem.

They want to do whatever it takes to excel in the school that produced Civil War generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Sen. Henry A. du Pont, astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Frank Borman, and a long gray line of other military geniuses such as Patton and Schwarzkopf.

"It's not going to be a cakewalk," Krause admitted.

"It won't be fun, especially the first year," when their superiors will break them down physically and mentally "to build you back up their way." Then they'll do it all over again until they have crafted leaders from their cadets.

Giacomo and Krause, both 18, will join the four or five Montanans this year accepted to the West Point Class of 2010.

Each U.S. senator and congressional representative is allowed two nominations for appointment annually. Both Sen. Conrad Burns and Rep. Denny Rehberg found the Whitefish seniors worthy: Burns nominated Giacomo for West Point and Krause for Colorado Springs. Rehberg flipped his nominations the other way.

Neither Giacomo nor Krause knew what to expect when they walked into the interviews. The drive to Bozeman, Giacomo said, had been a marathon prayer session covering both of them for whatever was to come.

Turns out, the West Point letter of assurance that Krause carried with him - the product of his high-school achievements and his dad's, Stan Krause's, early contacts with the military academies - would have been all he needed. For good measure, the interview board asked him a bit about those he admired.

Giacomo, however, faced a bigger barrage from the political and military brass at the table.

"I got grilled," he said. "What makes you better than anyone else? Who are your heroes?" they asked him. "I had to kind of brag without being cocky."

"He's the most amazing oratorical person," Krause said, sure that his friend did well.

Giacomo needed the senator's principal nomination, not the secondary. He got it.

But application and nomination were only the first two steps toward the academy. They still had to qualify academically and physically. Then they had to be admitted.

In the Class of 2007, only 10 percent of nearly 12,700 applicants were accepted. In the Class of 2010, Giacomo said, only 8 percent of the 14,000 hopefuls made it.

What's up next for the two friends?

First, it will be "R-Day," when they get their heads shaved and are ordered to carry huge bags throughout their first day at West Point as they are stuffed with uniforms and other gear essential to their new lives.

They will be allowed exactly five chews per bite of food.

They will speak only the four responses allowed a plebe: "Yes, sir." "No, sir." "No excuse, sir." "I don't understand, sir."

They may be ordered to get up at 2 a.m. and go outside for a run.

They will memorize every word in the "Book of Knowledge," then recite the proper passage whenever an upperclassman asks for some obscure piece of information about equipment or procedures.

They will do early-morning laundry for those upperclassmen.

They will memorize two complete newspaper articles daily, keeping abreast with the world.

In the end, though, they will come out changed.

"First and foremost, I feel I am supposed to become a president of our country," Giacomo said. "There's no other school who has that many senators, congressmen and presidents come out of it."

And he wants to hold the vision of a West Point graduate, now clothed in a business suit, who plunged into ground zero after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to offer whatever help firemen needed.

"He knew his duty and he did it," Giacomo said. "That's what I want to be, and that's what West Point will make of me."

Krause admitted to having a blank slate for his plans after West Point.

"I don't honestly know," Krause said. "But West Point is the best place to be and there's no better place to start. Part of me would want to be president. I'll just prepare and go wherever God wants me to go."

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com.