Sister Act: Siblings enjoy companionship at military academy
11/13/99 By Jason Trahan, courtesy Arlington Morning News
Allison and Amy BennettThe life of a freshman at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy isn't easy. Just ask Allison Bennett.
She's had upperclassmen scream at her in the early morning. She's buffed toilets to a high sheen. And she's run countless miles as part of her indoctrination.
Things are tougher for Allison. Her older sister, Amy Bennett, is an upperclassman officer at the King's Point, N.Y., military academy.
"My sister was the first person to yell at me," says 18-year-old Allison, half grinning at her sister. "She told me to go back to the kitchen where I belonged. That was the first thing I heard."
The sisters are among the few women enrolled in the predominantly male Merchant Marine Academy, where female students make up only about 7 percent of the institution's enrollment of about 970.
There are 34 women - the largest group on record - in Allison's class of about 270.
Amy, a 21-year-old senior, says she knows about two other sets of sisters enrolled at King's Point, the name students use in referring to the school.
"There's no way that I would get to spend as much time with her as I do, being at college," Amy says. "It's nice when she gets a couple of hours off to sneak away and go out to eat." Actually, upperclassmen aren't supposed to talk to freshmen, other than to scream at them, both young women stress. But school officials make an exception for the sisters.
"You don't not want to have a sister for four years," Amy says.
"It's kind of strange, but even though it's a really small school, I don't actually see her or talk to her all that much," Allison says.
The sisters both graduated from Arlington High School - Amy in 1996 and Allison this year.
Amy, a marine engineering major, will graduate in May. Allison, majoring in maritime logistics, will graduate in 2003.
"I wouldn't have known about the academy, if it weren't for my sister," Allison says. "Originally, I wasn't thinking military, but my sister had been trying to convince me for quite a while."
Allison says she eventually plans to run for political office.
"Having a military background is really good for politics," she says. "Transportation is the most important part of economics, and economics runs politics. I also want to go to law school, maybe Tulane. They have the best admiralty law program."
Amy, who was Arlington High's first female wrestler and an ROTC member, says she planned to attend a military academy after her high school graduation. She applied to the other service academies, but found that King's Point's marine engineering program was stronger.
"It's something different that nobody knew about it, so it was kind of an adventure," she says.
While Amy doesn't know exactly what she wants to do after graduation, she's leaning toward becoming a missionary and building orphanages.
In the interim, adventure is one of the benefits of being a King's Pointer. Earlier this year, while fulfilling her requirement of one year at sea, Amy was sent to Kosovo to supply ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
"It was real exciting to be part of that. I was on a warehouse ship. We carried all the food and supplies - from everything to toilet paper to frozen goods to eggs."
The Merchant Marine, a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation, splits its time between supplying Navy ships and importing and exporting for commercial interests.
Both Amy and Allison say they value what they're learning at King's Point, even though their college experience is vastly different from some of their peers'.
Friends find it strange that Allison is up at 6 a.m. on Saturdays.
"To them, that's weird. When you see that, you realize how much different your experience is compared to all your friends.
"I think it's worth it," Allison says.