steve_ohhh (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} steve_ohhh) wrote,@ 2005-05-07 00:34:00 |
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R-Day part one
This is the first part of R-Day. I am not finished with it yet because it was an incredibly long day. You'll see what I mean. Again, ignore the crappy format, I wrote it in MS Word.
R-Day
[From this point on, anytime I use all capital letters LIKE THIS it is because the speech given is similarly intense. I hate using caps when I don’t have to, so trust me, it is only because I feel it necessary in order to express the dialogue correctly.]
I looked up at my alarm clock. 3:53. Next thing I know, the radio is on. And so began Reception Day at West Point. Wandering down to breakfast somewhere in the Hampton Inn, I started getting excited. Adrenaline is an incredible stimulant. It will wake you up twenty times faster than caffeine ever imagined. Breakfast, however, was disorganized and unsatisfying. I think I had a carton of milk and a muffin. That would be my body’s fuel for the next eight hours.
I went back up to my room after breakfast to take in one last breath of civilian life, the morning news. At 5:50 I decided to come down to the lobby and join everybody in line for the busses. But there was nobody in the lobby. The four full-size tour busses full of Cadet Candidates were waiting for me outside. Yikes. There were 188 young men and women and a dozen Army officers waiting on me for permission to leave. I went to the first bus in line, and I got some looks from the officers, but nothing more. In a way, they did more damage than help to me. If they had “corrected” me I would have been better prepared for the day’s festivities. Unfortunately, however, the weak looks just buttressed my belief that it wouldn’t be as bad as I had heard.
We pulled up to Eisenhower Hall, the first mile in the marathon to follow. There was a pair of local news teams doing the annual R-Day reports. West Point and the town right outside of it, Highland Falls, are economically dependent on four thousand students, its employees, and the tourist opportunities offered by the national landmark that is USMA, so R-Day is always a biggie. In fact, two days before R-Day there is a mock run-through of R-Day with the local townspeople acting as Cadet Candidates so that the upperclassmen are prepared for their duties. The upperclassmen, actually, have to perform much better than the new kids because they have already had two or three years in the system. Everyone is evaluated during Beast, and upperclassmen are no exception.
We got out and got in line (just wait for all the lines, you’ll see). There were three arrival times that were dictated by little colored postcards (grey, white, and yellow) which we got in our pre R-Day preparation packets. The three times were 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30. I had the middle slot, but one could arrive anytime after the hour printed on the card. It was about 8:50 when I checked my watch for the first time.
There were parents everywhere. The parents of McMinnville showed up. They were surprisingly attractive (his mom was quite hot). I still don’t understand why they didn’t all just ride up together, but that’s McMinnville for ya. These kids were still holding on. I detached myself the day before at the airport. From where I stood the line was about a half a mile long, winding its way down a hilly street, onto Ike Hall’s sidewalk, down a large set of stairs, around a patio, and eventually into the inside of Ike Hall. Being the end of June, it was pretty warm… for a morning in New York. It was sunny and about 65 degrees. This would increase about 12 or 13 degrees by the end of the day (not killer, but enough to have an effect).
There were hundreds of kids in line at any given time. Lots of them had sports equipment on hand. Many were wearing the same black dress shoes as before. They were extremely goofy, wearing black shoes with white socks and normal shorts and shirts. Everyone had a duffle or travel bag of some sort. When I finally got down to the patio I noticed an NCO (non-commissioned officer – sergeants, etc) with a camera and microphone, interviewing kids before they got into Eisenhower Hall. He was asking them, “Why did you come to West Point?”
“Ya know, I just wanna, ya know, serve my country.”
“Lead troops into battle.”
“Become the best leader I can be.”
The NCO asked me if I wanted to be interviewed. I declined. What would I say? If I answered like everyone else, it would be full of lies, and I wasn’t prepared to start my West Point career like that. While in line I befriended some guy. I don’t remember what he looked like, except that he was white and looked like a wrestler. Eventually we got up to the doors. The cows (juniors) standing outside the doors were very pleasant because there were parents around. They directed a group of about 20 of us into the main theatre of Eisenhower Hall.
I sat next to the wrestler. The parents sat next to their kids. We were nervously joking with eachother because we knew that this was it, that the rest of the day would be hell. An officer came up to the gathering and gave a rundown of our class statistics. Lots of Eagle Scouts, class/student body presidents, average SAT score of 1300 something, you get the idea. Then he said,
“You have thirty seconds to make your final goodbyes then the cadet candidates will be escorted down the aisle and into another room.”
“Uhh, bye buddy. Glad my parents aren’t here so I can’t turn around now.”
“Yeah me too”.
The shit hit the fan.
“PUT YOUR BAGS INTO YOUR LEFT HAND AND FORM A SINGLE FILE LINE!”
Here it goes, I thought. We went through double doors into an covered patio between sections of the building.
“GET INTO ONE OF MY LINES!”
We went into one of four lines, divided by masking tape. We were told to put our bags to our left side.
“Now is the time to give up any items that you are prohibited from having during Beast. This is the amnesty box. If you have knives or other weapons, non-prescription drugs, cell phones, or things that were not listed in the paperwork that you received before you got here, you can turn them into the amnesty box and you will not be penalized whatsoever. If you do not turn these items in now but are caught with them later you will punished to the fullest extent possible. Get these items out now.”
We were led back inside, to a ramp. At the top of the ramp was a box mostly full of non-prescription drugs like Tylenol, Cough Syrup, and foot powder. I didn’t put anything in there because I didn’t feel like opening up my bag and searching for the bag of medical goodies that mumsly packed for me. I would just deal with the consequences later if necessary.
From there were directed into a garage that had two long sections of tables with a lot of pens and tags. I was the first person into the second set of tables, so I went to the end, right next to a Cow. When everybody got in place the insanity really set in.
“Pick up one of my tags and one of my pens and write your name, home address, and phone number on the tag and tie it securely to your bag. NOW!”
You would not believe how hard it was to do this simple task. My handwriting was even worse than usual. I was trying to write quickly and I even forgot my address and phone number for a second. The cadre (upper class cadets in charge of Beast) were literally breathing down our necks.
“WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG CADET CANDIDATES? DO YOU NOT KNOW YOUR OWN ADDRESSES?”
Then I tied the tag to bag a couple times. I finished before most other people and the cadre noticed.
“PUT… MY… PEN DOWN CADET CANDIDATE!”
This is when I noticed the first of many hesitations of by the cadre. They tried and tried and tried to be hardasses, but they are just a couple years older than us, and most of them are harmless. I could tell that he wanted a reason to yell at me, but he didn’t have one. I almost laughed it was so obvious. The insanity of the situation, however, kept me in line. I knew that the worst thing to do during Beast would be to smile.
From there we went were led out of the garage onto a platform where were split into four more lines. Go to http://www.usma.edu/Class/2008/rday/rda
Obviously (if you checked out the pictures) the next step was the bus ride.
“GET IN MY BUS!” You are starting to get the picture.
“EYES AND HEADS STRAIGHTFORWARD. NO TALKING. DO NOT MOVE AN INCH.” Just check out image 5 for an example.
I looked next to me because I was next to a girl. I wanted to see if she was hot. She wasn’t, but I didn’t get caught so it was worth it. After five minutes of staring into a mole-plastered neck we arrived at Thayer Hall, the building most of our briefings would be in and the primary academic building on post.
Inside we were led around in a thousand different confusing directions (to disorient us, no doubt). Imagine the lines at a roller coaster. They go back and forth, many rows deep. In one part of the hall there was a similar partition, about 3 rows deep. Because of its structure, I had to go back and forth, but because there was no one in front of me it was not slowly. As I got to one end an NCO shouted “WALK WITH A PURPOSE!” Since it was three rows deep I got to come back to the same end and get greeted with another pleasantry, “Keep your shoulder against the wall at all times!”
When I finally caught up with the cadet candidates in front of me I found them reading a piece of paper. I didn’t have time to read it because a group of fifteen of us was shuffled into a classroom.
“Everyone take a seat and relax for a minute. I am a JAG [judge advocate general, aka lawyer] in the U.S. Army. Here is where you will sign the agreement officially making you a member of the United States Army. After this you will be known as “New Cadets”. Please take thirty seconds to read the sheet in front of you. If there are any questions please ask me.”
I didn’t have any questions because I had read the same sheet three times at home. The agreement entailed four years at West Point, followed by at least five years of active duty in the Army, and three years of reserve duty after that. It also had some basic legal limitations to starting a cadet career at West Point: cadets cannot be married, have kids, or be younger than 17 or older than 23 as of June 28, 2004. I knew that the real agreement comes to years later in the form of the Cow Commitment. The first class in a junior’s first day of school he or she signs the real deal. After that, if he backs out he must either pay the school back for the time, education, and training he experienced or go to military jail (Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas). So I knew that heck, if the place really sucked, I would know way before junior year.
We went upstairs to the next phase of R-Day, the clothes distribution. This is where I got my green flight bag that some of you may have seen. I use it as my laundry bag these days. Thanks West Point.
I got bags and bags of socks, undershirts, BVDs (tighty-whiteys), white gloves, ARMY PT shorts, and the like. They were given to us at a frantic pace by local civilians who work for the Army. There were actually many of these Army employed civilians – interesting to see where your tax dollars go, no? The last piece of clothing was a sample PT shirt. It has the school crest but no name. After a lot of this stuff we were led into the main auditorium in Thayer Hall. We were told to get out our black dress shoes if we weren’t wearing them already, or to keep wearing sneakers if we didn’t have them. We also needed black socks, a white undershirt, the ARMY PT shorts, and the quasi-jock strap that didn’t have a pocket for a cup… yup, just piece of cloth over our crotch.
There was a large screen across the front of the stage in the auditorium. When the group of 24 before us finished whatever they were doing, we were confronted with the challenge they just faced. They told us to get totally naked and put on the jock strap. This wasn’t a problem for me because I have been naked in front of other people before, but lots of the other guys [at this point girls were separated from guys] tried some classic tricks for covering themselves up. There were two rows of chairs on the stage behind the screen, facing the curtain. I was in the back row. When the Captain in charge told us to get naked, the guys in front of me were embarrassed and turned around to try to avoid having everyone see their packages. Since I didn’t feel the need to do the same, I was three feet away from about 4 guys who turned around to flash me their front sides. I suppose they didn’t have the foresight to imagine that turning around would be even worse than facing forward.
When we were all changed into our jocks army personnel and cadets came by and inspected us for scars, tattoos, and piercings. A fifty year old black captain came up to me and gave me a quick once-over. I had a zit on my ear for some reason. The captain noticed it and asked, “What’s tha–“
“It’s a zit, sir,” I interrupted. Okay, he didn’t freak out, but never again would I interrupt a person in a superior position. Acne is fairly embarrassing as it is, so I am sure he understood. I checked out and got dressed into the outfit that they told us to get ready. The “R-Day Special” was a white undershirt tucked into ARMY shorts, black shoes and long black dress socks.
Then we went back into the main hallways of Thayer. The next stage was a series of medical checkpoints, including immunizations of all types. I had gotten all of them before I came so skipped down the hall and around the corner to the next hall. Here is where I picked up my TEDs – Tactical Eye Devices… Get it yet? It’s an acronym for glasses. Only in the military will they make an acronym that takes longer to say than the original word. For example, New Cadets certainly couldn’t call them “Teds” like multiple guys named “Ted”. Or even “T – E – Ds”. New Cadets are made to use the phonetic alphabet for any acronym – and there are lots of them. So if one wants to say “glasses” he/she actually says “Tango Echo Deltas”. I asked if I could just take out my contacts for a second and try them on to make sure they fit. I couldn’t because they didn’t have anywhere to put the contacts. And onto my face went the gaudiest glasses I have ever seen.
Soon after the medical-checks portion of the day we were divided into our companies. Let me break down the structure of Beast. It is pretty simple compared to how the school is structured the rest of the year. There are 8 companies – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel. There are four platoons in each company. There are four squads in each platoon. I was put into Delta Company. They gave me a tan tag with a big “D” on it. Other companies had different colors. We were like different types of meat in a slaughterhouse. The momentum of the day forced me back into the hallway where there were eight classrooms partitioned for – you guessed it – each of the companies.
I went up to the wall next to Delta’s room and hilarity ensued. Since I was in the back of a line of four guys, I didn’t attract much attention. I mostly went along for the ride during this particular episode. There were two lines against the right wall, facing forward. At the front of the lines and to the side, facing us was a small Asian man. He had two stripes on his shoulder. He quickly went through some easy designations, “Two stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a junior, you will address him or her as ‘Sergeant’. Three stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a senior, and you will address him or her as ‘Sir, Ma’am, or Lieutenant’. Four stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a senior and is addressed as ‘Sir, Ma’am, or Captain’. Two stripes and a diamond means that the cadet is a junior and you will address him or her as ‘First Sargeant’ and ‘First Sargeant’ only. Are there any questions as to what I just said?” He said it so fast that I only caught the gist of what he was saying. I didn’t catch more than a few words of each sentence. This was the first part of R-Day for which I was not prepared. Needless to say, I was a little worried.
He told us to pick up our bags and put them in our left hands. Put them down and do it all at one once. Don’t look behind you to see if everyone else is doing it. Pick them up again. DO IT AT THE SAME TIME. DON”T LOOK BEHIND YOU! I wanted to laugh so hard because this guy was a head shorter than I, and I am a short guy at 5’8”. Imagine four guys picking up and putting down their bags at different times, trying to follow not only each other, but the cadence of a pissed off little man. It’s the stuff that alums talk about decades after graduation – not only as the scared New Cadets, but as the laughing upperclassmen as well. He sent about six of them into Delta’s room. The guy in front of me and myself moved up and to the right, against the wall. Now we waited for some more people to come and fill in the lines. I got the benefit of hearing the spiel again, about the stripes and whatnot. When I met up with the First Sergeant for the first time, I had totally forgotten, but that was hours away.
He sent the guy in front of me into the room. Thrity seconds later he sent me in behind him. I was introduced to Sergeant Iten.
“What is your name new cadet?!?”
“Stephe–“
“Address me as Sergeant!”
“Yes sir–Sergeant! Uhh–“
“Uhh! Uhh!” He started smiling because he was messing with me; I knew it, and he absolutely knew that I knew it too. I started to crack a smile too.
“Are you smiling New Cadet?”
“No sergeant!!”
“Good. Where are you from New Cadet?”
“Nashville, Tennessee sergeant!”
“Nashville? I like Tennessee New Cadet. Know someone from there.” I didn’t know how to respond to this. I wanted to say “Thanks” but that would have been awkward. Instead I just-as-awkwardly didn’t say anything at all.
“When you pass a superior member of Delta Company you will greet him or her. When you greet you will say, ‘Steadfast and loyal!’ Do you understand New Cadet Ellis?”
“Yes Sergeant!”
“Then let me hear it!”
“Steadfast and loyal.”
“COME ON! LOUDER!”
“Steadfast and loyal!!”
“POP OFF New Cadet”
“STEADFAST AND LOYAL”
“Come on New Cadet, you are embarrassing me.”
“STEADFAST AND LOYAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Move on to the next station where you will read the items on the blackboard and put the appropriate items into your green flight bag. Do you understand New Cadet?”
“Yes Sergeant!” And so I moved turned around and moved 10 feet away to the wall. There was so much shouting going on in the room that I found it hard to concentrate on the things written on the blackboard. There were things like underwear, stationary, deodorant, razors, and 20 other things including a picture of your family. I didn’t get the chance to put the picture of my family in my bag for a couple of reasons. First, the craziness of the situation in general. Second, I caught the tail end of a big crew of people leaving the room so they made me join them. I totally missed the third station of the room, which was the “Four Responses” (Yes sergeant/sir/ma’am, no sergeant/sir/ma’am, sergeant/sir/ma’am I do not understand, no excuse sergeant/sir/ma’am) but it was OK because I was already familiar with them.
This is the first part of R-Day. I am not finished with it yet because it was an incredibly long day. You'll see what I mean. Again, ignore the crappy format, I wrote it in MS Word.
R-Day
[From this point on, anytime I use all capital letters LIKE THIS it is because the speech given is similarly intense. I hate using caps when I don’t have to, so trust me, it is only because I feel it necessary in order to express the dialogue correctly.]
I looked up at my alarm clock. 3:53. Next thing I know, the radio is on. And so began Reception Day at West Point. Wandering down to breakfast somewhere in the Hampton Inn, I started getting excited. Adrenaline is an incredible stimulant. It will wake you up twenty times faster than caffeine ever imagined. Breakfast, however, was disorganized and unsatisfying. I think I had a carton of milk and a muffin. That would be my body’s fuel for the next eight hours.
I went back up to my room after breakfast to take in one last breath of civilian life, the morning news. At 5:50 I decided to come down to the lobby and join everybody in line for the busses. But there was nobody in the lobby. The four full-size tour busses full of Cadet Candidates were waiting for me outside. Yikes. There were 188 young men and women and a dozen Army officers waiting on me for permission to leave. I went to the first bus in line, and I got some looks from the officers, but nothing more. In a way, they did more damage than help to me. If they had “corrected” me I would have been better prepared for the day’s festivities. Unfortunately, however, the weak looks just buttressed my belief that it wouldn’t be as bad as I had heard.
We pulled up to Eisenhower Hall, the first mile in the marathon to follow. There was a pair of local news teams doing the annual R-Day reports. West Point and the town right outside of it, Highland Falls, are economically dependent on four thousand students, its employees, and the tourist opportunities offered by the national landmark that is USMA, so R-Day is always a biggie. In fact, two days before R-Day there is a mock run-through of R-Day with the local townspeople acting as Cadet Candidates so that the upperclassmen are prepared for their duties. The upperclassmen, actually, have to perform much better than the new kids because they have already had two or three years in the system. Everyone is evaluated during Beast, and upperclassmen are no exception.
We got out and got in line (just wait for all the lines, you’ll see). There were three arrival times that were dictated by little colored postcards (grey, white, and yellow) which we got in our pre R-Day preparation packets. The three times were 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30. I had the middle slot, but one could arrive anytime after the hour printed on the card. It was about 8:50 when I checked my watch for the first time.
There were parents everywhere. The parents of McMinnville showed up. They were surprisingly attractive (his mom was quite hot). I still don’t understand why they didn’t all just ride up together, but that’s McMinnville for ya. These kids were still holding on. I detached myself the day before at the airport. From where I stood the line was about a half a mile long, winding its way down a hilly street, onto Ike Hall’s sidewalk, down a large set of stairs, around a patio, and eventually into the inside of Ike Hall. Being the end of June, it was pretty warm… for a morning in New York. It was sunny and about 65 degrees. This would increase about 12 or 13 degrees by the end of the day (not killer, but enough to have an effect).
There were hundreds of kids in line at any given time. Lots of them had sports equipment on hand. Many were wearing the same black dress shoes as before. They were extremely goofy, wearing black shoes with white socks and normal shorts and shirts. Everyone had a duffle or travel bag of some sort. When I finally got down to the patio I noticed an NCO (non-commissioned officer – sergeants, etc) with a camera and microphone, interviewing kids before they got into Eisenhower Hall. He was asking them, “Why did you come to West Point?”
“Ya know, I just wanna, ya know, serve my country.”
“Lead troops into battle.”
“Become the best leader I can be.”
The NCO asked me if I wanted to be interviewed. I declined. What would I say? If I answered like everyone else, it would be full of lies, and I wasn’t prepared to start my West Point career like that. While in line I befriended some guy. I don’t remember what he looked like, except that he was white and looked like a wrestler. Eventually we got up to the doors. The cows (juniors) standing outside the doors were very pleasant because there were parents around. They directed a group of about 20 of us into the main theatre of Eisenhower Hall.
I sat next to the wrestler. The parents sat next to their kids. We were nervously joking with eachother because we knew that this was it, that the rest of the day would be hell. An officer came up to the gathering and gave a rundown of our class statistics. Lots of Eagle Scouts, class/student body presidents, average SAT score of 1300 something, you get the idea. Then he said,
“You have thirty seconds to make your final goodbyes then the cadet candidates will be escorted down the aisle and into another room.”
“Uhh, bye buddy. Glad my parents aren’t here so I can’t turn around now.”
“Yeah me too”.
The shit hit the fan.
“PUT YOUR BAGS INTO YOUR LEFT HAND AND FORM A SINGLE FILE LINE!”
Here it goes, I thought. We went through double doors into an covered patio between sections of the building.
“GET INTO ONE OF MY LINES!”
We went into one of four lines, divided by masking tape. We were told to put our bags to our left side.
“Now is the time to give up any items that you are prohibited from having during Beast. This is the amnesty box. If you have knives or other weapons, non-prescription drugs, cell phones, or things that were not listed in the paperwork that you received before you got here, you can turn them into the amnesty box and you will not be penalized whatsoever. If you do not turn these items in now but are caught with them later you will punished to the fullest extent possible. Get these items out now.”
We were led back inside, to a ramp. At the top of the ramp was a box mostly full of non-prescription drugs like Tylenol, Cough Syrup, and foot powder. I didn’t put anything in there because I didn’t feel like opening up my bag and searching for the bag of medical goodies that mumsly packed for me. I would just deal with the consequences later if necessary.
From there were directed into a garage that had two long sections of tables with a lot of pens and tags. I was the first person into the second set of tables, so I went to the end, right next to a Cow. When everybody got in place the insanity really set in.
“Pick up one of my tags and one of my pens and write your name, home address, and phone number on the tag and tie it securely to your bag. NOW!”
You would not believe how hard it was to do this simple task. My handwriting was even worse than usual. I was trying to write quickly and I even forgot my address and phone number for a second. The cadre (upper class cadets in charge of Beast) were literally breathing down our necks.
“WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG CADET CANDIDATES? DO YOU NOT KNOW YOUR OWN ADDRESSES?”
Then I tied the tag to bag a couple times. I finished before most other people and the cadre noticed.
“PUT… MY… PEN DOWN CADET CANDIDATE!”
This is when I noticed the first of many hesitations of by the cadre. They tried and tried and tried to be hardasses, but they are just a couple years older than us, and most of them are harmless. I could tell that he wanted a reason to yell at me, but he didn’t have one. I almost laughed it was so obvious. The insanity of the situation, however, kept me in line. I knew that the worst thing to do during Beast would be to smile.
From there we went were led out of the garage onto a platform where were split into four more lines. Go to http://www.usma.edu/Class/2008/rday/rda
Obviously (if you checked out the pictures) the next step was the bus ride.
“GET IN MY BUS!” You are starting to get the picture.
“EYES AND HEADS STRAIGHTFORWARD. NO TALKING. DO NOT MOVE AN INCH.” Just check out image 5 for an example.
I looked next to me because I was next to a girl. I wanted to see if she was hot. She wasn’t, but I didn’t get caught so it was worth it. After five minutes of staring into a mole-plastered neck we arrived at Thayer Hall, the building most of our briefings would be in and the primary academic building on post.
Inside we were led around in a thousand different confusing directions (to disorient us, no doubt). Imagine the lines at a roller coaster. They go back and forth, many rows deep. In one part of the hall there was a similar partition, about 3 rows deep. Because of its structure, I had to go back and forth, but because there was no one in front of me it was not slowly. As I got to one end an NCO shouted “WALK WITH A PURPOSE!” Since it was three rows deep I got to come back to the same end and get greeted with another pleasantry, “Keep your shoulder against the wall at all times!”
When I finally caught up with the cadet candidates in front of me I found them reading a piece of paper. I didn’t have time to read it because a group of fifteen of us was shuffled into a classroom.
“Everyone take a seat and relax for a minute. I am a JAG [judge advocate general, aka lawyer] in the U.S. Army. Here is where you will sign the agreement officially making you a member of the United States Army. After this you will be known as “New Cadets”. Please take thirty seconds to read the sheet in front of you. If there are any questions please ask me.”
I didn’t have any questions because I had read the same sheet three times at home. The agreement entailed four years at West Point, followed by at least five years of active duty in the Army, and three years of reserve duty after that. It also had some basic legal limitations to starting a cadet career at West Point: cadets cannot be married, have kids, or be younger than 17 or older than 23 as of June 28, 2004. I knew that the real agreement comes to years later in the form of the Cow Commitment. The first class in a junior’s first day of school he or she signs the real deal. After that, if he backs out he must either pay the school back for the time, education, and training he experienced or go to military jail (Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas). So I knew that heck, if the place really sucked, I would know way before junior year.
We went upstairs to the next phase of R-Day, the clothes distribution. This is where I got my green flight bag that some of you may have seen. I use it as my laundry bag these days. Thanks West Point.
I got bags and bags of socks, undershirts, BVDs (tighty-whiteys), white gloves, ARMY PT shorts, and the like. They were given to us at a frantic pace by local civilians who work for the Army. There were actually many of these Army employed civilians – interesting to see where your tax dollars go, no? The last piece of clothing was a sample PT shirt. It has the school crest but no name. After a lot of this stuff we were led into the main auditorium in Thayer Hall. We were told to get out our black dress shoes if we weren’t wearing them already, or to keep wearing sneakers if we didn’t have them. We also needed black socks, a white undershirt, the ARMY PT shorts, and the quasi-jock strap that didn’t have a pocket for a cup… yup, just piece of cloth over our crotch.
There was a large screen across the front of the stage in the auditorium. When the group of 24 before us finished whatever they were doing, we were confronted with the challenge they just faced. They told us to get totally naked and put on the jock strap. This wasn’t a problem for me because I have been naked in front of other people before, but lots of the other guys [at this point girls were separated from guys] tried some classic tricks for covering themselves up. There were two rows of chairs on the stage behind the screen, facing the curtain. I was in the back row. When the Captain in charge told us to get naked, the guys in front of me were embarrassed and turned around to try to avoid having everyone see their packages. Since I didn’t feel the need to do the same, I was three feet away from about 4 guys who turned around to flash me their front sides. I suppose they didn’t have the foresight to imagine that turning around would be even worse than facing forward.
When we were all changed into our jocks army personnel and cadets came by and inspected us for scars, tattoos, and piercings. A fifty year old black captain came up to me and gave me a quick once-over. I had a zit on my ear for some reason. The captain noticed it and asked, “What’s tha–“
“It’s a zit, sir,” I interrupted. Okay, he didn’t freak out, but never again would I interrupt a person in a superior position. Acne is fairly embarrassing as it is, so I am sure he understood. I checked out and got dressed into the outfit that they told us to get ready. The “R-Day Special” was a white undershirt tucked into ARMY shorts, black shoes and long black dress socks.
Then we went back into the main hallways of Thayer. The next stage was a series of medical checkpoints, including immunizations of all types. I had gotten all of them before I came so skipped down the hall and around the corner to the next hall. Here is where I picked up my TEDs – Tactical Eye Devices… Get it yet? It’s an acronym for glasses. Only in the military will they make an acronym that takes longer to say than the original word. For example, New Cadets certainly couldn’t call them “Teds” like multiple guys named “Ted”. Or even “T – E – Ds”. New Cadets are made to use the phonetic alphabet for any acronym – and there are lots of them. So if one wants to say “glasses” he/she actually says “Tango Echo Deltas”. I asked if I could just take out my contacts for a second and try them on to make sure they fit. I couldn’t because they didn’t have anywhere to put the contacts. And onto my face went the gaudiest glasses I have ever seen.
Soon after the medical-checks portion of the day we were divided into our companies. Let me break down the structure of Beast. It is pretty simple compared to how the school is structured the rest of the year. There are 8 companies – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, and Hotel. There are four platoons in each company. There are four squads in each platoon. I was put into Delta Company. They gave me a tan tag with a big “D” on it. Other companies had different colors. We were like different types of meat in a slaughterhouse. The momentum of the day forced me back into the hallway where there were eight classrooms partitioned for – you guessed it – each of the companies.
I went up to the wall next to Delta’s room and hilarity ensued. Since I was in the back of a line of four guys, I didn’t attract much attention. I mostly went along for the ride during this particular episode. There were two lines against the right wall, facing forward. At the front of the lines and to the side, facing us was a small Asian man. He had two stripes on his shoulder. He quickly went through some easy designations, “Two stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a junior, you will address him or her as ‘Sergeant’. Three stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a senior, and you will address him or her as ‘Sir, Ma’am, or Lieutenant’. Four stripes on the shoulder means the cadet is a senior and is addressed as ‘Sir, Ma’am, or Captain’. Two stripes and a diamond means that the cadet is a junior and you will address him or her as ‘First Sargeant’ and ‘First Sargeant’ only. Are there any questions as to what I just said?” He said it so fast that I only caught the gist of what he was saying. I didn’t catch more than a few words of each sentence. This was the first part of R-Day for which I was not prepared. Needless to say, I was a little worried.
He told us to pick up our bags and put them in our left hands. Put them down and do it all at one once. Don’t look behind you to see if everyone else is doing it. Pick them up again. DO IT AT THE SAME TIME. DON”T LOOK BEHIND YOU! I wanted to laugh so hard because this guy was a head shorter than I, and I am a short guy at 5’8”. Imagine four guys picking up and putting down their bags at different times, trying to follow not only each other, but the cadence of a pissed off little man. It’s the stuff that alums talk about decades after graduation – not only as the scared New Cadets, but as the laughing upperclassmen as well. He sent about six of them into Delta’s room. The guy in front of me and myself moved up and to the right, against the wall. Now we waited for some more people to come and fill in the lines. I got the benefit of hearing the spiel again, about the stripes and whatnot. When I met up with the First Sergeant for the first time, I had totally forgotten, but that was hours away.
He sent the guy in front of me into the room. Thrity seconds later he sent me in behind him. I was introduced to Sergeant Iten.
“What is your name new cadet?!?”
“Stephe–“
“Address me as Sergeant!”
“Yes sir–Sergeant! Uhh–“
“Uhh! Uhh!” He started smiling because he was messing with me; I knew it, and he absolutely knew that I knew it too. I started to crack a smile too.
“Are you smiling New Cadet?”
“No sergeant!!”
“Good. Where are you from New Cadet?”
“Nashville, Tennessee sergeant!”
“Nashville? I like Tennessee New Cadet. Know someone from there.” I didn’t know how to respond to this. I wanted to say “Thanks” but that would have been awkward. Instead I just-as-awkwardly didn’t say anything at all.
“When you pass a superior member of Delta Company you will greet him or her. When you greet you will say, ‘Steadfast and loyal!’ Do you understand New Cadet Ellis?”
“Yes Sergeant!”
“Then let me hear it!”
“Steadfast and loyal.”
“COME ON! LOUDER!”
“Steadfast and loyal!!”
“POP OFF New Cadet”
“STEADFAST AND LOYAL”
“Come on New Cadet, you are embarrassing me.”
“STEADFAST AND LOYAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Move on to the next station where you will read the items on the blackboard and put the appropriate items into your green flight bag. Do you understand New Cadet?”
“Yes Sergeant!” And so I moved turned around and moved 10 feet away to the wall. There was so much shouting going on in the room that I found it hard to concentrate on the things written on the blackboard. There were things like underwear, stationary, deodorant, razors, and 20 other things including a picture of your family. I didn’t get the chance to put the picture of my family in my bag for a couple of reasons. First, the craziness of the situation in general. Second, I caught the tail end of a big crew of people leaving the room so they made me join them. I totally missed the third station of the room, which was the “Four Responses” (Yes sergeant/sir/ma’am, no sergeant/sir/ma’am, sergeant/sir/ma’am I do not understand, no excuse sergeant/sir/ma’am) but it was OK because I was already familiar with them.
