I went to the United States Merchant Marine Academy this week.

It was graduation day, and about 200 cadets listened to Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deliver the commencement address.

But I didn't attend the ceremony. I wandered the campus with a friend who had graduated from the academy in 1970. He described the education he received in engineering and the culture of a military school.

The campus is full of reminders of ritual and discipline — people in uniforms — some carrying rifles — and the buildings and grounds neat and manicured. We watched 13 cadets lower a huge American flag and fold it carefully. The academy is an institution dedicated to rules and order, which naturally generates mischief that makes sense only at such a place.

"One night someone stole every piece of silverware out of the dining hall. In the morning, they found all of it in that swimming pool over there," my guide told me.

"That's a lot of silverware to move quietly in the night," I said.

"Sure is. An impressive feat. Now over there is one of the walls we would climb if we were sneaking off campus."

ROLL OF HONOR

The campus is beautiful, overlooking Long Island Sound. This is Kings Point, part of a spit of land called Great Neck on Long Island's north shore. If you remember your F. Scott Fitzgerald, Great Neck, where Fitzgerald lived, is the fictional West Egg of "The Great Gatsby."

The wealth Fitzgerald described in Gatsby is still evident. Eating breakfast earlier in a nearby diner, I watched a Bentley convertible roam the streets, and I passed a Lamborghini in a driveway.

On campus, my guide took me to the Mariners' Chapel. It has a triangular interfaith altar on a turntable representing the Catholic, Jewish and Protestant services conducted there.

Also in the sanctuary is a book in a case on a marble platform. This is the Roll of Honor. It lists the merchant seamen who lost their lives during the two World Wars. There are 7,000 names in the book — along with the rank, the name of the ship each served on and the date on which it sank.

Each day a cadet enters the chapel, opens the glass case, and turns one page of the book.

Engraved on the marble platform are these words: "Tell America we died for her and that we rest content."

Near the chapel is a plaque that commemorates the spot from which the academy community watched the World Trade Center towers fall in Manhattan that September morning, just a few miles away over the water. Then they helped in the rescue effort.

BITTERSWEET

As we walked in the underground hallways that connect the buildings, my friend described how he would, as a plebe, stand with his classmates, his spine tight against the wall, and answer the questions upperclassmen hurled at them.

We went to the campus store, and I bought a bosun's whistle. Maybe it's a boatswain's whistle. Anyway, seemed to me it's something grandchildren would like. I also think I might regret the purchase some noisy day.

My friend's recollection of the academy is bittersweet. Not all his memories are fond, not all his stories funny, but I've never seen him without the academy ring he earned.

On the football field, the graduation ceremony was long over. Adm. Mullen had finished speaking, diplomas had been distributed, photos taken and hugs shared. Parents were proud, graduates were looking forward.

My friend had looked back. I thanked him for bringing me here, to see a part of his and our nation's history. The experience was sad and uplifting at the same time.

And I do what the marble in the chapel urged me to do: "Tell America we died for her and that we rest content."

Jerry McGovern, the Press-Republican's coordinator of Newspapers-in-Education, taught in New York state's public schools, and now teaches in the Communication Department of Plattsburgh State. He can be reached at gmcgovern@pressrepublican.com or 565-4126. This column is the opinion of the writer and not necessarily of this newspaper.