Buxton Ridge Military Academy

Buxton Ridge Military Academy is the military school to which Jake Morgendorffer was sent instead of high school (and possibly junior high as well).

There is no indication that his experiences were happy ones. He describes the other boys as bullies who could "smell" his fear. He describes himself as being demeaned and terrorized by Corporal Ellenbogen, one of the instructors (who is seen in a flashback). Also, Jake's family appears to have largely forgotten about him at the time, leaving him at the academy until he graduated.

Between these abuses and the general hardships of life there, not to mention the fact that Jake described himself as a bed-wetter well into his teen years, the experiences he had at Military School were not pleasant. These shared negative experiences were the basis of a bonding moment between Jake and Anthony DeMartino.



"The Daria Diaries" show letters and photos sent home from Buxton by Jake. We learn he was there for over four years, that he was once part of the colour guard, that the girls in the local town "had it made" when it came to getting attention from the cadets, that Jake had 98 demerits in his third year, and that Jake's one friend at Buxton was Randy. Randy, who'd been sent to Buxton "because he put a fist through a wall", would go AWOL after fourr years and Jake would've followed him except he felt "Mad Dog" Morgendorffer would "never let me forget it". His letters show him becoming increasingly bitter and angry, his third letter making vicious attacks on his father and declaring he was going to graduate just so his father couldn't couldn't hold that against him. In the fourth letter, he lurches from revealing his intention to become a hippy to being glad he & his father 'made up' and is paying for his college tuition.

"The Lab Brat" mentioned many of Jake's classmates went to Vietnam and he likes to think of them as being killed in action; Diaries revealed that he went straight from Buxton to Middleton College, and that this kept him out of the Vietnam War.

Curiously, it is difficult to sort out to what degree Jake's memories are accurate. In real life, similar complaints are sometimes held over similar places or similar institutions; for example, the Blue Jackets Guard, which is basically a military version of the Boy Scouts. However, if Jake has proven nothing else throughout the series, he has shown us that he is not necessarily the most reliable witness to his own life.