Annual Monument Climb Attracts Mob Of Shirtless Military Hunks

The struggle is real... greasy.
From: NewNowNext

The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland had their annual climbing of the Herndon Monument this week, and luckily for us cameras were on campus to take pictures of the shirtless struggle.

It took one hour, 12 minutes and 30 seconds for plebes (members of the lowest class at a U.S. military academy) from the Class of 2019 to place a midshipman hat on top of the 21-foot, grease-covered monument.

“For decades, the Herndon Climb has marked the end of plebe year for midshipmen,” reports the Capital Gazette. “It is the culmination of everything they’ve learned about teamwork. They must form a human pyramid to scrape away at the vegetable shortening covering the monument, remove a ’Dixie cup’ hat from the top of the structure and replace it with an upperclassman’s hat.”

This year’s climb wasn’t the fastest, which was the Class of 1991 — 43 minutes, 43 seconds, but we don’t mind the men taking their time to reach the top.