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Sly and the family stone monster 1969 hit "every day people" and you just heard it while i'm standing here at westpoint. one of teenage david petraeus favorite songs while he was seeing the nearby mountains. at the time, america was in the made of a cultural revolution. by the time david petraeus was a senior at cornwall central high in 1970, america's young people were almost unrecognizable from ten years earlier. the twist and cruising were out. hippies and drugs were in. >> david and i were both similar in that we were conservative in our mind sets and even though woodstock was in the area ...

Beatle tipped on its side in front of his house. there were rumors that certain boys that were in the physics class may have had a hand in doing that. dave and a few of his best friends were the only guys who took physics that the time. he didn't deny it but he never admitted it. >> when we return on american commander, david petraeus begins his long and illustrious military career from the halls of westpoint to the battlefields of iraq.

He was real fast and he would run all day for you and he was mr. hustle out there. >> walter reed was the assistant soccer coach at cornwall central. >> he would take off and you knew he gusting to get the ball and you knew if he got the ball he would get it to the middle. a fine young man in those days. very motivated and you just knew that whatever he wanted to do he was going to accomplish it. >> a lot of our teachers were retired military. we are close to westpoint. >> i heard him mention a few schools but our head coach at the time was a graduate of westpoint and had coached soccer down t...

Goose. >> the beatless broke up and the nation was still deeply involved in the fight against communism in an unpopular war, vietnam. it was against this backdrop, that heather, allen and dave donned their caps and gowns and graduated from high school. it didn't come as a surprise to any one when dave got into westpoint. his mother was elate. >> she was proud and happy when dave was accepted to westpoint. >> on the morning of july 17, 1970 dave petraeus marched into the fabled halls of the military academy. >> the first day that all the new pleebs arrived they spent the day having their hair c...

The country's mood in the early '70s made it even tough. it was definitely a unique time period in westpoint's history. almost all my professors were vietnam veterans so vietnam was a constant threat in almost every class. we had protesters that came on campus allot so we were aware of the public disagreement with the war. i was personally spit upon in the port authority of new york one time as a pleeb so we were aware of some of the -- aware of a lot of the public discontent but we soldiered on. that was our job. >> in the midst of all the drills, predawn revelries and weapons training davi...