Bonds of Gold

The US Naval Academy Alumni Association asked me to write a feature about its Bonds of Gold ceremony for the Fall, 2014 issue of its alumni magazine, Shipmate. They wanted the story to  capture the pride and emotion of the ceremony.

Bonds of Gold is a program that brings together a new class of midshipmen with the class who graduated 50 years before. The Bonds of Gold ceremony, held in the current class’s junior year, is a moving event for alumni and the midshipmen. A number of graduates and their families present their 50-year-old rings to the new class, symbols of the values they share. The strength of the bond between the generations came through in the presenters’ stories of rings that had been around the world,  on and under the sea, to war and back, and their encouragement to the new class to carry on the Naval Academy legacy.