The NSA sponsors an annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) to raise awareness of and help develop cyber defense skills in our armed forces. This is the story of how the United Stated Merchant Marine Academy, the smallest of the five undergraduate service academies, has managed to hold its own, and even win one year, in head-to-head competition against other well-funded and well-organized federal academies from cyber attacks by the NSA Red Team with borrowed equipment, no funding, and no computer science program. The talk will cover thoughts on keeping your network manageable if you don't have an army of administrators and a DoD budget. We may also make fun of the Coast Guard Academy.