West Pointers Eager to Hit War Running

There's a group quietly hoping that the war in Iraq doesn't end just yet, and they're hardly insurgents. They're the class of 2009 at West Point, reports Newsweek, in a look at graduates of the military academy and their eagerness to serve their country. The storied institution has proven remarkably spry at adapting with the times, and continues to churn out the military's best and brightest.

"If you ask an officer here for career advice," says the 2009 class president, "they say the first thing you need to do is get out there and get deployed. Because pretty soon the war's going to be over, and you won't have that legitimacy, being an officer—like the only one in the Army—that hasn't served." (More West Point stories.)