Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Post
May 20, 2007
NYC's West Point '07 Grads
By Cathy Burke
Five New York City cadets will be among the West Point class of 2007 that graduates next Saturday - the first graduating class that enrolled in the Army academy after war had broken out in Iraq.
They face the grimmest odds of any in the last century of warfare. New York magazine reports that of the almost 3,800 military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, 49 have been U.S. Military Academy alumni.
That's three times the percentage of graduate deaths in Vietnam, six times higher than former cadets in World War II, and 13 times the proportion of those killed in World War I.
The city cadets often find they have a surprising lack of support in their hometown, but they stand by their Army.
"Everyone is optimistic about what lies ahead," David del Cuadro-Zimmerman, 22, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, told the magazine. "Dwelling on why the country went to war in the first place is a waste of time."
But other local graduates are bitter about the lack of support here and from Army brass.
"Everybody was all busy protesting the war at the time," Marya Rosenberg, of the Upper East Side, recalls of her decision to go to the USMA after her graduation from elite Hunter HS.
"I had one girl ask me what I was thinking about doing for college, and when I told her, she said, 'How could you do something so immoral?' They made fun of me in the yearbook."
The magazine quoted one unnamed cadet as saying: "People don't attribute the mistakes to any one person in particular. Well, OK - Donald Rumsfeld. And there's a disappointment with the civilian leadership overall."
It also quotes "a New York cadet" as complaining: "The generals haven't spoken up as much as they should have . . . The troops just aren't getting what's needed over there, or they're getting it too late. That's what makes people upset."
Mark Zambarda, 21, a Staten Island resident and son of an NYPD narcotics detective, found even his mother hoping that he would quit West Point.
"I encouraged him to get out if he could," said Nancy Zambarda, a Merrill Lynch administrator who wanted her bright son to apply to medical school. "As the reality of it started setting in, as a parent, I really got scared."
Rosenberg said she was hurt by the response she got at her old high school - not from kids but from teachers.
"One of the teachers, when I walked down the hall in my uniform, yelled, 'No blood for oil!' " she said. "Then I talked to my old art history teacher . . . and I wanted to tell him I'm taking a bunch of art history courses now. He was, like, 'Oh, so you'll know what [the] buildings are before you drop bombs on them.' "
May 20, 2007
NYC's West Point '07 Grads
By Cathy Burke
Five New York City cadets will be among the West Point class of 2007 that graduates next Saturday - the first graduating class that enrolled in the Army academy after war had broken out in Iraq.
They face the grimmest odds of any in the last century of warfare. New York magazine reports that of the almost 3,800 military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, 49 have been U.S. Military Academy alumni.
That's three times the percentage of graduate deaths in Vietnam, six times higher than former cadets in World War II, and 13 times the proportion of those killed in World War I.
The city cadets often find they have a surprising lack of support in their hometown, but they stand by their Army.
"Everyone is optimistic about what lies ahead," David del Cuadro-Zimmerman, 22, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, told the magazine. "Dwelling on why the country went to war in the first place is a waste of time."
But other local graduates are bitter about the lack of support here and from Army brass.
"Everybody was all busy protesting the war at the time," Marya Rosenberg, of the Upper East Side, recalls of her decision to go to the USMA after her graduation from elite Hunter HS.
"I had one girl ask me what I was thinking about doing for college, and when I told her, she said, 'How could you do something so immoral?' They made fun of me in the yearbook."
The magazine quoted one unnamed cadet as saying: "People don't attribute the mistakes to any one person in particular. Well, OK - Donald Rumsfeld. And there's a disappointment with the civilian leadership overall."
It also quotes "a New York cadet" as complaining: "The generals haven't spoken up as much as they should have . . . The troops just aren't getting what's needed over there, or they're getting it too late. That's what makes people upset."
Mark Zambarda, 21, a Staten Island resident and son of an NYPD narcotics detective, found even his mother hoping that he would quit West Point.
"I encouraged him to get out if he could," said Nancy Zambarda, a Merrill Lynch administrator who wanted her bright son to apply to medical school. "As the reality of it started setting in, as a parent, I really got scared."
Rosenberg said she was hurt by the response she got at her old high school - not from kids but from teachers.
"One of the teachers, when I walked down the hall in my uniform, yelled, 'No blood for oil!' " she said. "Then I talked to my old art history teacher . . . and I wanted to tell him I'm taking a bunch of art history courses now. He was, like, 'Oh, so you'll know what [the] buildings are before you drop bombs on them.' "