If you’ve never heard of a soldier armed with an “espontoon,” that might be because there’s only one in the entire U.S. Army, and it’s held for strictly ceremonial use in the service’s most hallowed infantry unit.
But the little-known ceremonial weapon will be front and center for next month’s Army-Navy game, depicted on the top of the football helmets that players from the U.S. Military Academy will wear in their annual showdown with the U.S. Naval Academy.
The espontoon blade will be among the most prominent of several hidden-in-plain-sight details included on the uniforms worn by West Point’s football team, which the school made public on Wednesday.
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Over the last decade, both teams have taken to wearing distinctive, one-time-only uniforms that celebrate elements of their service for the game. A Navy official told Task & Purpose they would announce their specialized uniforms closer to the game.
The Army uniform honors the service’s 250th anniversary, a change from recent years when famed fighting units or particular campaigns served as themes for the uniforms.
The mostly-white uniforms “pay tribute to 250 years of service since the Army was founded as the Continental Army in 1775 ahead of the Revolutionary War,” according to a website for the uniforms.
Most notably, the uniform numbers and names use a distinctive script that mirrors the writing of the Constitution.
“Written in the same style as the United States Constitution, it showcases the importance of having an Army that swears loyalty to a set of ideas rather than a monarch,” the release said.
The script is in black on a uniform that appears white but is actually a print of white marble, a callback to wartime memorials and headstones. “From the beaches of Normandy to the rolling hills of Arlington National Cemetery, marble headstones represent the sacrifice of generations of soldiers who have upheld the army’s values and given their last full measure of devotion to their nation.”
Both academies have worn special, one-time uniforms for the Army-Navy game for several years, as has the Air Force Academy for its games with the rival academies. As the home team in 2024 — the designated host/visitor roles switch each year — the Army wore an all-black uniform dedicated to the 101st Airborne, and one for the 3rd Infantry Division in 2023. The 2021 uniform focused on Special Forces soldiers of Task Force Dagger, who routed Taliban forces in Afghanistan in 2001.
The 2024 Army uniform includes several other Revolutionary War-era details, such as a chain that calls back to a blockade of the Hudson River near West Point and purple stitching as a color of sacrifice associated with the Purple Heart medal.
But at the top of the helmet is perhaps the deepest symbolic cut, a pointed blade that mirrors the ceremonial espontoon — a lance-like pole with a pointed blade — carried exclusively by the drum major of the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps. The Fife and Drum Corps is embedded in the 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is otherwise known as the Old Guard, the unit that performs all ceremonies at Arlington Cemetery. While other military bands wear modern uniforms, the Fife and Drum corps wear period-correct Continental Army uniforms and perform marches and other music as they would have been played by musicians in George Washington’s army.
While drum majors elsewhere carry a mace, the leader of the Fife and Drum carries the espontoon, a lance-like weapon common in 17th and 18th-century infantry and that traces its use to polearms and other spear weapons used throughout history.
The Army-Navy game is Dec. 13 in Baltimore, Maryland.
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