Navy-Air Force Game to Go On Despite Shutdown

The Navy-Air Force football game will go ahead on Saturday despite the government shutdown, because the military academy game will be paid for without using funds appropriated by Congress, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

The same goes for an Army football game this weekend against Boston College, the spokesman said. Future games will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The decision came during a difficult week for the defense department, which furloughed roughly half of its 800,000 civilian workforce, hollowing out offices and thinning out shipyards maintaining America's nuclear submarines.

The shutdown has also affected military academies. Both the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy, for example, say they have had to cancel about 20 percent of their classes.