Inside the Army-Navy prisoner exchange: ‘We can take it and dish it the same’

The Midshipmen and Black Knights line up at the scrimmage line for their annual matchup in 2023.

The Navy Midshipmen and the Army Black Knights line up for the snap at the line of scrimmage during the first quarter of an NCAA football game at Gillette Stadium, Dec. 9, 2023, in Foxborough, Mass. (Winslow Townson/AP)

(Tribune News Service) — Tucker Smith returned to his room in the barracks at West Point on Sunday evening after a night of studying, ready to wind down before exam week got underway Monday morning. The midshipman was instead greeted with a surprise: His Navy uniforms had all been removed from his closet and replaced with a single “Popeye the Sailor” costume.

“A very small Popeye costume, at that,” Smith said. “So, that’s what I’ve been wearing all week.”

Ahead of the Army-Navy Game on Saturday, Smith and seven of his fellow midshipmen will take the field opposite eight Army cadets who all spent the semester studying at the other service academy. Led by an Army first captain and Navy brigade commander, the two groups will march out to midfield before changing sides in a ceremony called the “prisoner exchange.”

It’s a program almost unfathomable across college football rivalries. An Ohio State student spending the semester at Michigan? Forget it. But the experience, which started in 1945 as a weeklong exchange program, offers the eight juniors from each school the opportunity to learn from both the similarities and differences between the two academies in a reminder that the two branches still serve the same country.

They also experience the brunt end of the Army-Navy rivalry in the weeks leading up the game as easy targets stuck in enemy territory. Smith, who hails from Cheyenne, Wyoming, played along by wearing the Popeye costume to his exams, though he made sure to get back at his rivals-turned-classmates by giving the plebes in his company a personal 5:30 a.m. wakeup call banging on their doors and playing music. (Donuts were later offered as a peacemaker.)

“The week in general is just a kind of an all-out prank war between us and West Point,” said midshipman Samuel Hendricks, a Dayton, Ohio native, in a Zoom call. “It’s all in good fun. I think all of us take it pretty well. We can take it and dish it the same. But yeah, every night we’ll be hanging up banners. We’ll be doing whatever to try and show the West Point cadets that they went to the wrong school. I’m sure the West Point cadets at Navy are doing the same thing.”

Similar shenanigans have indeed been taking place down in Annapolis.

“I came here because I want all the smoke,” said cadet Andrew Farrant, who’s from Galveston, Texas. “Midshipmen stole every single one of my uniforms. So, I coordinated — because if I’m gonna have to wear a Navy uniform, I’m gonna wear the best one — I coordinated with a buddy. I wore their choker whites to class on Monday, which is pretty funny.

“Now that I was in a good looking uniform, they decided at formation to dump a bucket of ice cold water on me. So, I went into that particular midshipman’s room, and I moved her entire room into the company wardroom.”

But before either set of students could be comfortable enough to start pulling any pranks, there was a significant adjustment period for both sides. West Point uses the Thayer Method, which requires students to study the material on their own before class before discussing what they learned with the professors. The Midshipmen, used to the traditional classroom instruction, struggled at first to adapt to the different style of the learning.

Students from both sides had to learn an entirely different military vocabulary as well. Hallways at the Naval Academy are called P-ways, in reference to the port side of a ship. Doors are hatches and the bathroom is called the head. Cadets have also had to take part in Navy chants, an increasing number of which have ended with “Beat Army” in recent weeks.

“It’s been funny, being in this environment I have to watch my words,” said cadet Olivia Jenkins of St. George, Utah. “Now, sometimes I mix the two up, and so I think I’m gonna need a little intervention when I get back to West Point.”

With exam week now over, all that’s left now is their march to midfield at Northwest Stadium on Saturday. One key part of the tradition is the message the cadets and midshipmen wear across their backs, which remains confidential until the ceremony. Last year, the messages were “Nuke Army” and “Eat Squid” spelled out from left to right.

Once the prisoner exchange is completed, the two groups will then sprint to join their companies on opposite sides of the stadium to watch the game. Army (11-1) is favored to beat the Midshipmen (8-3) for the seventh time in nine years after winning the American Athletic Conference championship last weekend, but there’s no shortage of confidence on either side. Smith wagered his hair on it, making a bet with three cadets over the winner with the losing side having to shave their head.

Few members of either academy will ever gain the same level of appreciation — or first-hand experience — of the rivalry between Army and Navy more than the prisoner exchange students. Yet this semester also offered them insight into the nuanced qualities of the other branch, giving them new perspectives as they prepare for their military careers.

“We like to pick fun at each other around the edges, but at the end of the day, we’re both going to service academies,” said cadet Reagan Eastlick, who’s from Oviedo, Florida. “We both have stupid stuff pop up that most people in college don’t have. We’re both pulling long hours and doing hard work and, at the end of the day, after like 47 months, we all raise our right hand and swear an oath to the Constitution. That’s really important and so I have a lot in common with the midshipmen, even if I make fun of them a good bit.”

Fall 2024 West Point cadets in Annapolis:

Andrew Farrant from Galveston, Texas

Olivia Jenkins from St. George, Utah

Reagan Eastlick from Oviedo, Florida

Zach Machinga from Palmyra, Pennsylvania

Matthew Toner from Sturgis, Michigan

Colton Kuzdzal from Fredonia, New York

Sean Kim (couldn’t make interview)

Jayram Suryanarayan (couldn’t make interview)

Fall 2024 Naval Academy midshipmen in West Point:

Ryan Macpherson from New Rochelle, New York

Tucker Smith from Cheyenne, Wyoming