SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Michael Marty will tailgate near Yankee Stadium on Saturday afternoon after commuting from Darien, Conn. He wouldn’t miss the chance to see his alma mater face his former employer, although calling Notre Dame the place Marty went to school and Army a place he used to work undersells both by the magnitude of the Hudson River, which connects New York City and West Point.
Advertisement Marty graduated from Notre Dame in 1995 through the school’s ROTC program and applied to just two colleges out of high school. Army was the other one. The Irish won out, thanks in part to visits to see his older brother Pat in South Bend on football weekends.
Pat went through the ROTC program too and graduated from Notre Dame in 1991. Their father, Major General Fred F. Marty, had asked both boys to help fund college with some type of scholarship.
ROTC covered it. And Michael Marty got the full Notre Dame experience on top of physical training twice per week and military courses. He attended the epic win over Florida State as a junior, the lighting of No.
1 atop Grace Hall and the loss to Boston College a week later. He served in the Army for seven years and later taught economics at West Point. He did an eight-month deployment to the Middle East during Operation Enduring Freedom immediately after 9/11.
In a life of perpetual military movement — Michael attended four high schools in four years — Notre Dame offered a constant. So did the concept of service. Free, daily .