After the whirl of controversy of the past two years, this year's Summer Reading Program could be called the calm after the storms.

This year's book selection, David Lipsky's "Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point," failed to whip up national headlines and even fell below the radar -- and TV -- screens of cable news.

In fact, about the only critical attention Lipsky's book generated came from the actual students assigned to read it. And that is good news, considering the fact that turning students into critical readers has been the whole point of the program since it began six years ago.

AT ATTENTION David Watters (left), former Morehead scholar and Marine reservist, joins Faculty Chair Judith Wegner (center) in leading a discussion group for new Carolina students as part of the Summer Reading Program.

That was the point even in 2002, when the selection "Approaching the Qur'án: The Early Revelations," translated by Michael Sells, spurred a federal lawsuit that a judge later dismissed.

It was the point a year ago when some conservative students and pundits labeled the selection, "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich, as a "Marxist rant" that offered a skewed view of the mixed blessings of capitalism.

As part of its summer reading program, the University asks all new students -- about 3,500 freshmen and 800 transfer students -- to read a book and come prepared to participate in small group discussions led by trained faculty and staff. The non-credit assignment, an academic icebreaker, is voluntary.

The nine-member selection committee of students, faculty and staff voted 5 to 4 for "Absolutely American." A student suggested the book by responding to a campus e-mail request for input from the committee.

In the book, Lipsky, a "Rolling Stone" writer and an award-winning novelist, chronicled daily life of a cadet class from its arrival to West Point in 1998 to graduation in 2002 after the United States had finished with one war in Afghanistan and was about to start another in Iraq.

During these four years of doing research for the book, Lipsky enjoyed unprecedented access and was able to follow the cadets from the mess halls to training grounds, from the barracks to bars.

Through the telling of their stories, Lipsky explored whether patriotism, honor and service are quaint anachronisms or enduring principles that all rising generations of Americans should embrace.

Is West Point as a reflection of our society, still as "absolutely American," as Theodore Roosevelt once said it was century ago?

In one discussion group on the third floor of Bingham Hall, discussion leaders Judith Wegner and David T. Watters explored with students some of the issues and questions Lipsky takes up in his book.

Wegner, a law professor, former dean of the Law School and now chair of the Faculty Council, worked extensively with students in recent years to both revamp and revive the Student Honor Code here.

In her questioning, Wegner challenged students to think of how they could be of service to the public good both as students and citizens.

Watters -- a Morehead scholar -- befriended Wegner as a law student here when Wegner was the dean of the law school. He is a Marine who continues to serve in the Reserves. During the war in Iraq, he served as "historian in residence" for commanding Gen. Tommy Franks. Watters remains tied to the University as director for alumni and development at the John Motley Morehead Foundation.

Wegner and Watters explored with students a few of the cadets in the ensemble of characters that Lipsky profiled. In addition to the gung-ho stereotypes, they talked about Christi Cicerelle, a woman determined to stay coiffed and "girly" even as she became a highly skilled soldier. And they talked about George Rash, a good-natured kid from Georgia who arrived at West Point armed with a 1400 score on his SATs and burdened by lead feet prone to both blisters and blunder.

Watters focused attention on the extent to which West Point reveals character and molds it, and why West Point has an institutional charge to cull cadets who appear weak and unmotivated.

Watters called into question the approach that cadet Scott Mellon employed at West Point, which Watters described as seeking the refuge of the "invisible middle" rather than the challenge of stepping to the front to lead.

Watters asked: Would you want people like Rash or Mellon to be your platoon commander?

Jenna, a cross-country runner in high school from Boone who has a friend at West Point, said she was mystified that Rash was unable to complete a two-mile run in under 16 minutes.

Jenna said she tested herself while she was reading the book to see if she could meet the physical demands that West Point exacts. She could, she said.

But she said she is not so sure she could handle the psychological stress of trying to make it as a woman at West Point.

"I think mentally it would be harder for a woman," Jenna said. "You don't feel as strong of a bond with the group, and that would make it harder."

In another discussion group on the first floor of Bingham, Richard Kohn, history professor and chair of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense, honed in on the example of leadership and honor set by Lt. Col. Hank Keirsey.

Keirsey, a barrel-chested man with the voice of oak, served as head of military training at West Point. Cadets worshipped him as the epitome of the solider they should aspire to be.

But in 1999, West Point relieved Keirsey from his command and dismissed him from the Army after Keirsey decided to take the fall for a mistake made by one of his men.

Keirsey's father had been a colonel who taught Keirsey that a leader never leads from behind, always takes care of his people, and is always responsible for everything his people do or fail to do.

And so when one of Keirsey's captains made a politically incorrect joke on the computer, and that joke ended up spread onto the academy web and into in everybody's e-mail inbox, Keirsey appeared before his West Point superiors to take the blame.

What he did is a reflection of my command, and I bear full responsibility, Keirsey told them. His intervention worked. But saving the captain's career cost Keirsey his.

Kohn left the room for 15 minutes to give his students time to decide how they thought West Point should have dealt with Keirsey -- and to be prepared to explain their decision.

In their deliberations, students weighed how valuable Keirsey was to the institution, on the one hand, with the value of lesson for cadets of showing there are always consequences for actions.

When Kohn returned, the students said they would seek to preserve Keirsey's career while sending the right lesson by removing Keirsey from West Point for four years, after all cadets who had known about the incident had gone.

But Kohn said if Keirsey had been reassigned, he would make promotion to colonel, and if he weren't promoted to colonel, he wouldn't have been able to stay in for 20 years. In essence, his career would be over.

"So he made a mistake in command and had to pay for it," Kohn said. "Will it make the cadets better off?

"It showed you can screw around but there are consequences, " said one student.

"Maybe the lesson is that the Army is an unforgiving institution because battle is unforgiving," Kohn said.

"It's ambiguous," Kohn said, and inherently so because the military must instill responsibility even as it enforces accountability for transgressions.

"West Point lost a great officer," Kohn said, "and the cadets got a very strong lesson."