Nature
Service academies can be used to refer to all of the academies collectively. However in popular usage, this term is more often used for the academies of the four branches of the military: those of the Army, Navy, and Air Force (under the Department of Defense); and that of the Coast Guard (under the Department of Homeland Security). These are the only four academies whose students are on active duty in the Armed Forces of the United States from the day they enter the Academy, with the rank of officer cadet or midshipman, and subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. In the case of the Merchant Marine Academy, midshipmen may elect to receive an active duty or reserves commission in any branch of the uniformed services, including NOAA and the U.S. Public Health Service, most are commissioned into the Navy Reserve, Strategic Sealift Officer Program.
In the context of college football, the term "service academies" most often refers specifically to the grouping of Army, Navy, and Air Force, the three academies whose football teams compete in the top-level NCAA Division I FBS. The three schools compete annually for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy. Coast Guard and Merchant Marine compete at the NCAA Division III level and play each other annually for the Secretaries Cup (formerly Secretary's Cup when both academies were under the Department of Transportation).
The United States Coast Guard, and therefore the Coast Guard Academy, is a United States military service under the Department of Homeland Security but in time of war it can be placed under the Department of the Navy.
Read more about this topic: United States Service Academies
Famous quotes containing the word nature:
“Women stand related to beautiful nature around us, and the enamoured youth mixes their form with moon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer. They heal us of awkwardness by their words and looks. We observe their intellectual influence on the most serious student. They refine and clear his mind: teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and difficult.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact.... In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foothold.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)