They used to borrow each other's skinny jeans and dresses. Now they borrow ACU nametapes, black shoe polish and M16 cleaning kits. They are sisters, biologically and in arms, and they are all cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Three siblings at West Point at the same time is unusual. Three sisters at West Point at the same time with USMA graduates for parents--well, there's a first time for everything.
The Efaw sisters--Alexandra (Class of 2014), Anastasia (Class of 2016) and Arianna (Class of 2017) were bred to go to West Point.
"Yeah we're pure-bloods," Anastasia jokes. "West Point is in our DNA."
It all began when Amy Blanchard and Andy Efaw graduated from West Point with the Class of 1989 and were married six months later. Not long after came Alexandra, and then over the next 10 years arrived Anastasia, Arianna, Andrew Jr., and Aimee Katerina at an average of two-year intervals (though their mom denies any truth to the rumor that the Army inspired all the "A" names).
With so much West Point in their blood, the Efaw household was managed with what some might describe as martial law.
"Think of the Von Trapp family minus the "sound of music," and that was pretty much us," Arianna said.
"Yeah, West Point feels just like home."