When the Midshipmen take the field for the 2013 Army-Navy football game, their uniforms will showcase a history as storied as the Annapolis-West Point rivalry itself. The Nike Pro Combat uniform starts with a burlap-patterned base layer emblazoned with “Don’t Give Up the Ship.” The saying was the last command of Capt. James Lawrence, commander of the frigate Chesapeake, who died of wounds from small arms fire during the War of 1812. Unfortunately, Chesapeake ended up falling to the British. But not long after Lawrence’s death, Commodore Oliver Perry would fly a flag reading “Don’t give up the ship.” This…
