In the fall of 1965 West Point cadet Tom Carhart and five of his
classmates from the U.S. Military Academy pulled off a feat of
extraordinary ingenuity, precision, and raw guts: the theft of the
billy goat mascot from their rival, the U.S. Naval Academy at
Annapolis, just before the biggest football game of the year. The
U.S. forces in Vietnam were then at two hundred thousand and
growing, with casualties spiking, and the men in West Point's class
of 1966 were well aware that they would serve, and quite possibly
die, in that far-off war. But West Point's motto, "Duty, Honor,
Country," affirms that its graduates will always obey the decisions
of our elected government, and the men of '66 were dutiful: of the
579 who graduated, 30 died in Vietnam and roughly five times
that number were wounded. Since this would be the men's last
Army-Navy football game as cadets, they wanted to go out with a
bang, not a whimper. Carhart tells the incredible true story of
how, in stealing that Navy goat, the cadets unknowingly reenacted
the story of Jason and the Golden Fleece from Greek mythology. The
caper is interwoven with an insider's narrative about the private
lives of six West Point cadets in the early 1960s, who, against all
odds, hurled their last hurrah of triumph to America before flying
off to fight its wretched war in Vietnam. For more information
about The Golden Fleece visit carhartthegoldenfleece.com.