The ACADEMY

by Ed Ruggero

A bitter wind is blowing from Washington across West Point, and Major Tom Gates—a muddy-boots soldier ill at ease in a spit-and-polish world—is about to face a battle more brutal than any he has ever known. It began with an all-too-human mistake—Gates had too much to drink and pushed a cadet too far—and it will explode into a political firestorm that could leave careers, lives, and West Point itself, in ruins.

Senator Lamar Bruckner has his eye on the White House, but his target is West Point. He flagrantly condemns the Academy as a waste of taxpayer money, a military ivory tower—and Gates’ momentary lapse of judgment is the first charge in a smear campaign that could propel Bruckner to the presidency. Caught in the middle of Bruckner’s manhunt is Wayne Holder, a fourth-year cadet, whose golden surfer looks and reputation as a ladies’ man are far from the pristine image of the Long Gray Line. But for Holder to join that line, he faces a private conflict between honor and desire—upon which the ultimate fate of the Academy rests. Now, enemy lines are drawn in a war of political motives and personal emotion that touches many lives…

Kathleen Gates, Tom’s wife, is as calculating as her husband is bullheaded, and she will use any weapon to protect him. Bruckner’s aide, Claude Braintree, has come to West Point to further the senator’s career—and will exploit the Academy to do it. Alex Trainor, a cadet from the heartland, is trapped in a personal crisis that shatters his conservative ideals. And Brigadier General David Simon dreams of taking control of the Point to re-create it in his own image.

In The Academy, Ed Ruggero brilliantly captures the honor and the controversy, the glory and the human flaws of West Point and its people. With prose as crisp as a flag snapping in the wind, this thrilling portrayal will resonate long after the last page is turned.

Genres: Fiction

464 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Ed Ruggero remembers very clearly two ambitions he had early on: he wanted to be a soldier and he wanted to be a writer.
Ruggero graduated from West Point in 1980, fulfilling one of his professional dreams. He served as an infantry officer in the Army and later returned to West Point to teach literature and writing. While he was on the faculty at West Point that Ruggero got the idea that it would be great to invite a newly famous author named Tom Clancy for a visit.
“I knew Clancy was fascinated by all things military, and West Point is a great draw. I had no travel budget to offer him, but I cheekily wrote that if he made his way to New York, I’d let him talk to my upperclass cadets.”
Clancy’s visit became a big event for the Academy, and the author was a houseguest of the Superintendent, the three-star general who is essentially the president of a university. Ruggero made good on his promise and brought Clancy to class to speak to cadets in a writing course.
“He told the cadets that he’d waited until he was forty years old to even try writing, something he’d always wanted to do. He told them not to wait.”
Ruggero took Clancy’s advice to heart and got to work on a manuscript that would become his first novel, 38 North Yankee.
“I got up at 4:30—oh-dark-thirty in Army jargon—and wrote until it was time to leave for work at six. I had two young children at the time and didn’t want to sacrifice my time in the evenings with them.”
Ruggero has written fiction, military history and several titles on leadership; and has built a business running retreats for business executives to places like Normandy and Gettysburg.
“We use the history of these battles and the challenges facing the commanders, to figure out how we can better lead our modern organizations.”
On one visit to West Point Ruggero met a graduate of the Class of 1941, who became a guide for two of his books, both non-fiction accounts of American paratroopers in World War Two. Some of the hundred and fifty or so former paratroopers Ruggero interviewed fought in six major campaigns.
“Getting to know those men and capturing their stories for later generations has been a highlight of my professional career.”
While visiting Sicily to research his non-fiction Combat Jump, about the 1943 Allied invasion, Ruggero became intrigued by the question, ”What happens after the fighting moves on?”
“The Allies had somehow to restore law and order and recreate a civil society and all its functioning parts immediately in the wake of the most violent and chaotic of human endeavors: modern war. That must have been incredibly difficult.”
That musing led Ruggero to a new fiction series that kicks off in 2019 with Blame the Dead.
“The protagonist is a former Philadelphia beat cop, Eddie Harkins, who winds up investigating the murder of a US Army surgeon. Among other problems, Harkins learns that many of the victim’s colleagues think that the dead man—who was something of a low-life—pretty much got what he deserved.”
“But, as Harkins says, you can hardly blame the dead guy for his own murder.”
Ruggero and his wife, Marcia Noa, divide their time between Media, Pennsylvania and Lewes, Delaware. Ruggero spent seven years as a trustee of the Philadelphia Outward Bound School.
“I often think of Tom Clancy’s advice to my cadets, which helped me in no small way to find a job I love.”