My roommate Plebe Summer at the Academy, Miguel Beccerell, had spent the previous year at the Naval Academy Preparatory School. Without him, I would have washed out within a week. Sooner. Hours. Minutes, even. I mean, really seriously – come my first Sunday morning and a few hours of personal time, I was on the phone home, in tears, begging Mom and Pop to get me the HELL out of there.
I was in terrible physical shape. Completely undisciplined. Didn’t know word one of military terminology. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I was absolutely, totally unprepared for the experience. It was D-Day on the shores of Normandy, getting beat into shape by none other than George Patton himself. With his horse baton and pearl-handled pistol. Nazi sharpshooters over the sand dunes. Tanks. Grenades.
This wasn’t the Annapolis you see in the movies. This was 1974. During the Viet Nam war. Captain Hodory was right out of combat. Chest full of ribbons. He wasn’t preparing us for cushy duty on a ship. He was preparing us for combat.
Eventually. Well. I didn’t just survive. I thrived! At the end of two years when I left, everybody had me pegged to be a six-striper, Brigade Commander. I was gonna be the first Admiral of our class. That wasn’t my opinion, but the general consensus. “Peer grease” we called them, peer evaluations. I was on the Superintendent’s List perennially – excellence in sports, academics, and peer grease. Two stars on the lapels of your dress uniform.
My squad leader for Plebe Summer was another Black guy, “Killer” Miller. Golden Gloves Boxing champion. Mean as a horse’s ass and twice as cruel. Until our C.O. Captain Robert W. Hodory, USMC showed up on the scene to one-up him. Doh! More like three-up.
Captain Hodory was the demerit champion of the Brigade, and proud of it. Feared far and wide by every mother-loving Midshipman until the very second they graduated and strapped on their silver Ensign bars. To make matters worse, we were billeted on the third floor of Bancroft Hall. Three floors, running. Up. Down. Up. Down. Many times each day.
My one, single, solitary advantage over my classmates was that I was well acclimated to the extreme heat and humidity of Annapolis in the summertime. Right there on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, humid as all get-out 24/7. While my classmates were panting and sweating buckshot and begging for salt tablets, I was cool as a cucumber (comparatively speaking).
Being so damn out of shape, I suppose had its advantage too. As soon as I hit the rack at night, I was out cold. Hot as it was at the end of the day? (There was no AC in Bancroft Hall. If anything, all the heat from the lower floors rose to our level.) Not a problem. I was ready for a skirmish with the z monster.
Gramm died a month into Plebe Summer. We were at lunch formation. I got called to the phone. They asked if I wanted to go to the funeral. I said no. Put it out of my mind. I’m glad she got to see me at the Academy, though, real glad.
It took a little steam out of my sails, knowing she was gone. Slowly, inevitably, one event after another vented more and more steam from those sails. But we’ll get to that later. For now – let’s have some FUN!
Once I got over the initial SHOCK, it wasn’t so bad. It also helped to be in better physical shape. Only took a couple of weeks getting up at 5 AM for an hour of calisthenics and running (in formation, singing – salty old Navy yarns, great fun!) around the artificial turf fields looking out on the sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay.
The worst part was the total loss of freedom. I’d always been a free spirit; so, it was rough having zero free time. There was a total lack of privacy as well. I’d always had my own space, at home and beyond. Now I had a roommate in a small room, and I was surrounded by folks 24/7. Our dorm room door had to remain open at all times. Couldn’t close it until the end of Plebe Year.
Mom and Pop came up for a Parent’s Weekend. I saw them briefly. They brought me an old Underwood manual typewriter and my tennis racquet. I got regular letters from them that summer and all Plebe Year. The highlight of my day, seeing a letter in my mail slot. Mom sent a box of homemade cookies (well, slice and bake, chocolate chips – my favorite!) now and then. Shared them with my roommates.
There was a great deal to learn in three short months that first summer on the Chesapeake. We were in formal or informal classes every minute of the day. Morse code. Knots. Signal cards. Learning minutiae about The Yard from a little book called Reef Points. The full name and hometown of everybody else in our company. How to polish shoes. Stand straight. Salute. Stand at port arms. Eat a “square” meal. March.
Several times out marching, on a command of RIGHT FLANK, I made a smart LEFT – grumbles as everybody had to hit the deck for fifty pushups. We learned etiquette. How to make a hospital bed. Fold clothes. Clean the room and the shower. “Eyes in the boat!” at the table. “Brace Up” when you couldn’t recite the ten items on the supper menu. (The food was very good.) How to stand at ease. “Port – arms!” Pa-rade Rest.
Killer Miller was a superb teacher. Patient. Clear. It’s quite amazing how much we learned.
My favorite memory of all time, hands down, was an afternoon we spent out cruising the Chesapeake Bay on the Academy’s giant sailboat. Huge sails. Mechanical bollards reefing in the lines. Keeling over in the wind. Ahh….
Even better than my first intercourse. (Which was quite a disappointment. Bo-ring.) That won’t happen for 3 or 4 more years, by the way. In Plano, Texas. On Thanksgiving vacation. In her folk’s house. Maybe that was the problem. Not enough romance? Not enough – danger?
At the end of the summer, Killer Miller told me he didn’t think I’d make it when we first started (and, like, for the next eight weeks . . .) Well, that makes four of us (counting Mom and Pop). But make it I did, and once classes started. Boom. I was on solid ground. It was still murder. Torture! Every day, every minute. But I made it through Plebe Year. I did well, in fact, ranked 20th in my class, studying mechanical engineering.
I remember, clear as night, my first day of classes that fall semester, striding away from the morning formation in the front of Bancroft Hall toward the classroom buildings. Past Tecumseh (bronze statue of an Indian chief, right there in the brick walkway – all painted up for the occasion). It was cool. Dry. I was on top of the world. Strong. Confident. Ready for anything. Best feeling in the whole world. If you could bottle that feeling, you’d be a billionaire. Alas, but I suppose the bottle would be full of sweat, tears, blood, and raw cat guts.
Classes were also held on Saturday morning, so it was a very busy schedule. All the courses in your academic major plus Navy ones – a public speaking class, the History of Sea Power, informal ethics instruction by Captain Hodory in the company wardroom (only TV we could watch, but it was off limits during Plebe Year), navigation, YP command (Yard Patrol boats, which were miniature destroyers with twin propellors on which we learned to “drive”), a different sports skill each semester (boxing, judo, gymnastics).
After just two years I had 124 credits (which included advanced placement credits I got for Spanish) which is enough for a BS at other schools.
In the fall the whole Brigade had a parade once a week. “March In Review!” There were regular room inspections, so we had to keep everything immaculate. (Dust on top of the door – demerits. Lint under shoes in your closet. Demerit. White film on the shower stall. Demerit. Scuffs in the wax on the floor. Dirty windows. Sloppy bed. . . Captain Hodory never got married. Doh!) We had to stand 24-hour watch once a month or so.
We had lots of small things to memorize every day. The full menu for the next three meals. The exact number of days until Christmas vacation, graduation, and the Army-Navy game. The current Officers of The Watch. Three articles off the front page every day plus three off the sports page. These were a special trouble for me because I knew zero about current events or any sports so I couldn’t ad-lib like everybody else.
Upperclassmen also assigned special reports. “Clark, I want to know all about the Aegis shipboard defenses system this evening.”
Aye, aye. Sir. (My eyes never leaving the boat.)
The whole brigade went to all home football games (our mascot was a Goat, but there was also a dude in a gorilla outfit who pumped out pushups after every score). We beat Notre Dame that year. Little ‘old Navy!
We beat Army, too. (I won an Army bathrobe, wore it often.) H. Ross Perot made a bet with the Brigade over the Air Force Game. “If Navy wins, I’ll send a couple of Middies to Hawaii for vacation with their sweethearts. If the zoomies win, you have to get a haircut just like mine.” Of course, I signed up for the bet. I didn’t go to the game out in Colorado, though – I volunteered for watch that weekend – but Air Force WON.
Come Monday morning, I went to the barbershop down on the ground floor of Bancroft Hall and got my head shaved. Then at the evening meal, they made an announcement that you could donate to a charity instead. Gee, thanks, Mr. Perot.
Our daily uniforms were all black. Shirt. Shoes. Socks. Tie (with a “spiffie” underneath to keep the shirt lapel down and the knot erect – don’t ask). Belt – with a shiny, spotless brass buckle. No “tattletales” (loose threads) on your shirt or trousers. We had small whisk brushes to get lint off the back and shoulders (wet the brush, then BRUSH down your classmate’s back in the mad rush before midday formation), especially for noon inspections on Thursdays, when Captain Hodory inspected. We also had to “tuck” the shirts in real tight at the back. (Your buddy had to do that for you, too. INHALE. Squeeze. Don’t breathe.)
There was a laundry room in the basement where they steam-cleaned the shirts and pants. Everything else went out once a week in a white net-mesh bag. One set of bed sheets lasted two weeks: after the first week, you move the bottom one to the top and vice versa. I don’t recall having blankets. It was VERY cold in that big marble mausoleum, too.
Plebes rotated duties to YELL out the menu three minutes before formation. So you rattle it off in the company area then run as fast as you can down three flights of stairs, across the main floor to the formation out front. If you were a second late – you guessed it, demerits.
Saigon fell in the spring of ’75, late in Plebe Year. I suppose everybody – especially seniors – were relieved. I don’t recall feeling anything. All I know is that, after the Viet Nam war ended, the edgy discipline and tangible danger devolved into the ambiance of just another elite college for Yuppies. Not exactly what I signed up for. This didn’t enter my conscious mind at the time, but I think it was there.
The dream is over. The conviction that we could win. Save the world from communism. We’d been effing defeated. We scurried away with our tails between our legs. Captain Hodory the combat veteran was no longer the role model to shoot for. His kind went out of style along with Richard Nixon.
I probably would have thought about all this at the time. However –
As I said before, there was zero free time. Zero freedom! This lasted for the whole, long, interminable, miserable Plebe Year. There were only two breaks. Christmas vacation (I came back from Aruba with a lovely tan), followed by the “Dark Ages” when the weather was miserable and cold. Having no hair (after loosing the bet with H. Ross Perot), it was exponentially cold for me.
There was a Spring Break in early March. Around that time was Saigon and visions of people being evacuated from the embassy (the one time that year we could watch the TV in the wardroom). The whole fiasco was only a blip on the radar for me, though – soon faded into the landscape of frantic chaos that is the life of a Plebe.
I got demerits Plebe Summer and marching duty for taking one more meat paddy from the breakfast tray than my peers. The demerits were wiped clean at the end of the summer. It seemed a harsh judgment, but I didn’t complain. I sailed through the rest of Plebe Year without any demerits.
I had three roommates. Robert Romaine from Pensacola, a decent enough guy but a little on the effeminate side. Rodriguez was a mechanical engineering major like me. A good guy. We played tennis a couple of times. Then he became a manager for the tennis team, after which time he wasn’t involved in the regular routine as much.
My best friend was Morrison Ray, a management major. His goal was to keep his vision 20/20, sign up for the easiest major possible so he could get good enough grades to land a slot in flight school at graduation, train on multi-engine jets, then become a commercial pilot. And that’s exactly what he did. Seven years of education on Uncle Sam.
Athletes in the Brigade had all kinds of special privileges. One of my classmates in 15th company, Fritsche, was a lineman for the football team. After Plebe Summer, we hardly ever saw him. He ate at a different “training” table, didn’t have to go to parades, and pretty much skated on everything. He had a sloppy uniform. A sloppy room. (His poor roommate, Findlay, damn near washed out from demerits.)
One semester I got to register for classes with the jocks. Both my physics professor and chemistry professor (Schmerling) gave out answers before all the exams. That’s the kind of education athletes got.
I remember a surly, arrogant Second Classman (a junior, seniors are called Firsties; Sophomores, Youngsters), Bowman, who lettered on the pistol team. Talk about a rigorous sport! We only saw him at the table in the off-season. He acted like it was an extreme imposition for him to be at our table.
Back at you, Mr. Rogers.
I’d guess that almost half the Brigade was on one sports team or another (not all at the same time of the academic year, of course). This bothered me. I got the training to be a Navy or Marine officer. Their training wasn’t even up to a public college education.
Worse yet, with none of the regular duties and extremely easy classes, they got much better grades and therefore got the pick of the open slots in the fleet at graduation, when everybody chooses from the available jobs according to their overall class rank.
Doh! Our whole damn society is sports-crazy. I told a Ford car dealer manager in Lenoir City, Tennessee a few years ago I went to Annapolis. “Oh! One of our best clients is an Annapolis grad. He played football. What did you do?” He was nonplussed when I said, nothing. As if to say, “If you weren’t on a team – what a loser.”
Actually, in military terms, I was the winner and his car-crazy friend was the loser. But that’s not what matters to either the Academy or the public at large. I’m sure the quality of leaders would be infinitely higher if they eliminated service academy sports altogether (that is, competing in college leagues).
Can’t they just compete among themselves, plus VMI and Citadel maybe Texas A and M? I bet if they did that, Navy would beat Notre Dame every time.
The old rationale for high-profile academy sports used to be that it attracted people to military service. Sorry, but that’s so not working anymore. 85% of youths can’t even qualify for enlisting in the Army, much less for one of the service academies. Kids don’t give a crap about duty, honor, service, sacrifice, or the Stars and Stripes. Give up my smartphone for a whole summer? OMG. A whole effing year?! No TV. No movies. No Tick Tock.
No. Fucking. Way.
At the end of Plebe Summer they have a ceremony where they grease up an obelisk in The Yard, Herndon’s Monument. Then the Plebe Class has to make a giant scrum (as they do in rugby) around it, take a little Plebe sailor’s hat (which has a blue rim) on top, and replace it with an all-white sailor’s hat.
My favorite statue in The Yard was of Tecumseh, the Native American chief. You met him already.
In front of Rickover Hall (named after the nuclear power submarine fanatic whose criteria for hiring was, “How fast can you make me angry, mister?”) is a string of bronze dots in the concrete, the path of a laser to determine the speed of light. That was the last scientific achievement of any merit they did at the Academy.
Rickover Hall was made on land recovered from the Chesapeake Bay (rather, the Severn River). The whole building is sinking now! Can’t no engineers at the Academy save it, neither.
Early in the academic Plebe Year, everybody gets assigned a sponsor, a civilian who works in The Yard. Mine was Carl Rountree (and his wife Linda), a young dermatologist from New Orleans. We hit it off right away. They ended up “adopting’ all my roommates, too. Right before I left, we painted a bedroom in the basement of their home on the north side of The Yard for – you guessed it – a love nest for none other than Midshipman Frische, the football lineman, and his girlfriend.
Dr. Rountree had been drafted while still in medical school. When I knew him he was, in fact, studying for his medical board exams. (How he could practice medicine in the Navy Hospital is beyond me.) He absolutely HATED the Navy. Bolded and underlined HATE. As a somewhat empathic person, a lot of that rubbed off on me. Slowly. Inevitably.
It was a pleasant escape, to visit the Rountree home now and again. (Less so when all my roomies came along.) Linda would make Angel Food cake (round, hole in the middle), literally dripping with rum. I’d bring it to the company area and share it with everybody.
“Who me? I didn’t know it had rum inside!”
I used $5000 Gramm left me to buy a dark green Audi Fox at a dealership in Townsend, Maryland. Best feeling in the universe, driving that new car off the lot. Freedom. Independence. The Audi High didn’t last very long because you aren’t allowed to drive, much less own, a vehicle within seven miles of The Yard. Only Firsties (seniors) can have cars within the Academy grounds.
I rented a garage in Annapolis and kept The Fox there. It was registered in my sister Regan’s name, so technically I didn’t own a car within the 7-mile circumference.
I’m not sure when I purchased the car (or even how I got away from the Academy to do so), but buy it I did. And I had it by the end of Plebe Year. We had a week or so of slack time before going out to sea on a summer cruise.
My roommates and I – including another Midshipman in our class who was from Louisiana, Bubba Lilly, packed camping gear in the Fox and headed out to Ocean City for a couple of days on the beach. (Bubba’s major was Russian. He graduated, got assigned to a rusty old ship, hated every minute of his days in the fleet – left the navy after his obligation and became an executive for a telecommunications company. Good people. The best.)
Back in Ocean City for a little well-deserved R and R… We met a group of young ladies from Washington DC and had some alcoholic spirits. Miss. Alexis Langley was diabetic, but drinking a little wine. Probably shouldn’t have let her drive my brand-new Audi Fox. Faster. Faster!
Around a curve in the pitch dark then – boom! – across the beach and – SLAM! – into the Atlantic Ocean.
Waves breaking on the hood. Water rising up from the floor. (We must have been pretty damn blitzed because it took a good while before we reacted.) We scrambled back to shore.
I went running down that rural lane, BANGING on people’s doors. (This was very early in the AM on a Sunday morning in the middle of the Bible Belt.) Somebody finally answered. A farmer. Put us on his tractor. Drove us back to the scene of the tragedy.
“Gosh, darn.” He said when we caught sight of a green metal top of my pride and joy. “I been pulling cars out of the drink for years. Ain’t never seen one in that far out in the surf.”
We got ‘er out. Gave ‘er C.P.R. FINALLY got ‘er started. Got ‘er back to his place. To a filling station, where another hearty Deleware soul washed the salt water off with a power spray. Then sent us on our way.
“Ah, these Middies. What would we do without them?”
As dawn was turning into morning, we returned to the campsite. Packed everything up. Got back to The Yard with mere seconds to spare before Liberty Call was over. Forever after, I was known as “Wild Bill and the Swamp Fox.” That damn story spread around the whole effing Brigade.
Soon thereafter, I contacted Ms. Lang in DC by phone. She was off-putting, to say the least. “All I need is for you to tell my insurance company (USAA) it was an accident.” She wouldn’t do squat.
So – cross my heart and hope to die – I lied to USAA and told them I was the stupid doing the driving on that dark and stormy night.
Later that year I had to replace the starter, which got all rusted out from the salt water. More and more things went wrong over the years with that poor, ill-fated vehicle.
At one point, circa 1982, broken down outside the Las Vegas Audi dealership, surrounded by dozens of parts I had replaced over the last eighteen hours – the manager came out and offered me a job as a mechanic. When I said no thank you he said, “Well, at least let me put you up at a nice hotel room for the night.” Now that I could handle.
Toward the end of my Youngster year, the Swamp Fox lived in the Rountree’s garage inside the Academy gates. Talk about an adrenalin rush, driving past the guard shack – shades, wool cap, avoiding eye contact – on the way out. . . To freedom! I didn’t use the car except when we were on leave – at which time it’s legal – but I loaned the keys to my classmates now and then to “Go over the wall.”
There was one, and only one, area of privacy allowed us. A small metal lockbox. The car keys were in there. Everything else was wide open. If you can’t trust future Officers of the United States Navy, then who can you trust?
(If you can’t trust the whole goddamn Brigade from keeping your Audi Fox a secret, then what are we even here for?)
Never being high in the trusting category, I do believe people knowing about the Audi Fox wore down my nerves that next year. It wasn’t a matter of IF they would catch be red-handed but WHEN. That was a Class A offense. Maybe several of them. That would get me EXPELLED and shipped off to the fleet as a perennially seasick swabee.
Again, this never entered my conscious mind but I’m sure it – dwelled. Deep in my subconscious. JAWS. Waiting to CRUNCH on me and my little green car friend.
After Plebe Year we could have personal items of clothing. Even wear them once in a while. I had a Bulldog USMC shirt. One time when I wore it, all my classmates accosted me – RIPPED the shirt off my back. Hauled me down to the Reflecting Pool. TOSSED me in! Say – what?
Never figured that one out. Not sure if I want to.
We could also have a stereo. I liked Elton John songs a lot at that time. Blasted them out. Had no idea he was gay. Had no idea what gay even WAS.
Maybe they thought I was homosexual – which was a criminal offense in the military at this time. Just my luck, to be discriminated against for something I wasn’t even guilty of being. (Full disclosure: Once I learned Elton John was gay, I never listened to another song. Like, can’t they just let us enjoy their music without tying a boat anchor around it?)
The summer after Plebe Year everybody goes out on a cruise in the fleet. I got assigned – with about 40 other Middies – to the U.S.S. Spartanburg County, a Tank Landing Ship. Flat bottom. Big ramp to drop down on a coastline – to offload tanks. Vehicles. Troops.
Belowdecks was a large room where all 40+ of us slept in hammocks. (Think Marines dismounting to storm the shores of the Bay of Pigs.) We sailed up the Atlantic Coast to Nova Scotia and back.
Not much busy work for 40 kids in dungarees on a ship that size (small). I ended up in the engine room, scrubbing the metal decks clean with a toothbrush. I kid you not. Extremely HOT. NOISIER than you can imagine. But, hey, I was a mechanical engineering major – well, here’s your mechanical and there’s your engine.
Scrub! There – you missed a spot.
The old salts said the Atlantic Ocean was as calm as they’d ever seen it. With a low draft and a flat bottom, the Spartanburg RODE WITH THE WAVES. I’m afraid I wasn’t a good Spartan, however.
Seasick as a dog, this is me – subsiding on chocolate milk and crackers the whole miserable week-long trip. As soon as we hit the dock at Nova Scotia, boom – Midshipman Clark was – gone for the hills.
I ran into a guy who ended up giving me a little tour of the area. Bay of Funday was nearby. Lots of nice coastline. Upon my return to the ship after liberty, a very dark and strange thing happened.
Several people took me and pretty much interrogated me. In a dark place. Angry voices. No faces. I suppose they thought I was gay – apparently, the dude who showed me around was a homosexual (although I’m not even sure of that) – and they wanted to roughhouse the truth out of me.
All they got from me was – can I please go now? My ship leaves like – very soon. I, mean – the seasickness is miserable.
But the engine room – needs my TLC.
When classes started my Youngster year, back at Bancroft Hall, Rodriguez said he’d been on a destroyer in the Pacific. Typhoon. Waves as tall as a skyscraper. He loved it! Note to self: you do NOT want to get assigned to a surface ship after graduation. Especially a SMALL one. That BOBS around.
I hate to admit it, but Youngster Year was kind of boring. Learning navigation on the big charts was fun. My first engineering class was a hoot. Didn’t pay much attention to the Plebes, as I probably should have. Field ball in the afternoons (lacrosse but with a soccer-type ball). Tooling around The Yard on my new bicycle. Rum cakes. Marching in parades. Losing multiple football games at Navy Field.
We had liberty on Saturday afternoons, but I never ventured into Crab Town. As empathic as I was, I think I sensed the animosity in society at large against military types. Saturday evenings Mo and I sometimes went to the gym for a pickup basketball game.
I tried the choir once. Love the Chapel. The stained glass windows. But singing like that? Not my cup of java.
All this year, the barracks was constantly full of JACKHAMMERS. GRRRR. They were remodeling the bathrooms in our company area. Next year women would be among the Plebes, and our company was to have several. This was very disconcerting (or maybe it was just the total, complete absence of SILENCE that year). GGGRRRR. You know me. I cherish my SILENCE.
Women can’t bear firearms, so the ceremonial swords seniors get to wear for parades and formations will go away. The ladies will be able to close their door rooms for privacy – which is understandable, but – zoom! – there goes half the stress of Plebe Year. Many other rules will go away. Traditions. Athletic standards. Dress code.
Can they carry M6 rifles for parades?
Hey. I’m all for training women to be officers. But, personally? I was a terrible student at ASM in Madrid, surrounded by girls and dating and parties and socializing. Then, in the all-male boarding school in Rome, I straightened right up. Women are an extreme distraction for me. The hormones. The – everything.
One more nagging worry that year to resolve.
I went to my sister Regan’s wedding down in Marksville, Louisiana at one point. I wore the formal Dress Blues uniform. I’m sure that went over well – Saigon had just happened, and this moron is showing off his military cred. I wasn’t being proud. Or arrogant. I was just – happy.
I wore the Dress Whites, back home in Aruba, a couple of times. To church (not a good idea). Out on a date with Monique Schmitt, a very sensual lady and the pear of my eye at this time. Never saw her again. (Whatever happened to, “I love a man in a uniform?”)
The rest of that summer I had to make do with teaching little kids how to swim in a lagoon at the Esso compound. Which was a real hoot, actually. My co-worker was a cute gal, Mary, who went to college in DC, although I never got past the zinc smeared on her nose against the sun.
That summer I was out sailing my little sunfish every chance I got. Pop and I were in a father-son sunfish race. We were making the last tack for a finish line. The boom swung around. Smart. Clean. Right on the money. And. And – the boom KNOCKED Pop off the boat!
“And this guy is going to the U.S. Naval Academy?”
Back at the Academy to finish out the summer, I was a Company Commander. Not a job I liked (well, the organizing was fine). I assigned my 2nd in command to march the group around. Did. Not. Like. Doing. That. (giving orders, calling cadence)
We went to Pensacola for a short trip on a small T-6 trainer jet. When we landed, I stepped out with both my gloves full of vomit.
Next stop was a couple days on a Boomer (submarine). Halfway through the cruise, we surfaced, and Midshipman Clark was the first one out the hatch – verging on a nervous breakdown from claustrophobia.
Then, after a week playing soldier at Quantico in the heat and the bugs; well, that wasn’t my thing either.
All things considered, I wasn’t real sure WHAT I wanted to do after graduating. Probably nuclear power – but that’s submarines – or aircraft carriers. OMG. A surface fleet?!
Then Captain Hodory (who was by now a Major – apparently the promotion board was impressed by the thousands of demerits he awarded, far outpacing all his peers) set me up to go to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs as an exchange student. Now THAT put wind back in my sails.
I was very motivated henceforth. NASA. John Glenn 2.0. The Space Program. Bring it on!
Events of the following spring; well, complicated things somewhat.
My roommate Morry Ray’s parents came down for Parent’s Weekend. They took me and Mo out to lunch. Turns out the dining establishment was outside the seven-mile limit.
We got hit with a Class A offense being outside the limit without authorization. (Plus a second Class A for drinking, but I talked Major Hodory out of that one: if you’re outside the 7-mile limit, there’s no rule you can’t have a grog with lunch.)
Hello? I had no control of where we were going. I had no idea we even were outside the 7-mile perimeter. I’m not even sure if I knew grog was an alcoholic beverage.
Captain Hodory hated my guts after that. How dare I deprive him of 150 precious demerits (75 for me and 75 for Mo). I certainly had no respect for him after that. Just raw fear. That’s no way to be a leader of men. Especially not a service academy, where you’re setting the example for future leaders.
Zoom, zoom – away goes the semester at the Air Force Academy as an exchange student. But every bad had a silver lining or at least a bronze one. We did march off our demerits in record time. We did get to go on spring break (which I’m sure pissed Major Hodory off no end).
We drove the Audi Fox up to Mo’s home in Howell, Michigan. (Stole a “FOX” front license plate from some car en route, drunk as a, well, sailor. Sorry about that, whoever we stole it from. But it was very nice. Stayed there ‘till the bitter end in a junkyard outside Austin, Texas.) That week in Michigan, I knocked out a par round on the golf links. Best round of golf I ever played.
Mo and I displayed our two Black N’s in our dorm room. (Same as the letters for the sports teams but BLACK. This very nicely symbolized how I felt about the jocks.) My esteem in my peers zoomed up. How does that work? Apparently, I was TOO good. TOO smart. But now – this guy is a real – leader?!
Like, helping everybody with their math homework isn’t enough? Crashing an Audi Fox into the Atlantic Ocean? Sharing rum cake? Handing out the car keys to all askers so they could go out “over the wall” on a date? (Like, you can’t make it a double and take me along? P-lease?)
I don’t know what flicked the magic light switch, to make me the swashbuckling Captain James T. Kirk Star Trek leader. (Wouldn’t see that show for 10+ years.)
And, yet. Somehow I was still, well – lost. In two years I had proven myself to be an excellent student. A good subordinate. Cheerful. Helpful. Very well-liked. What more could I have done? They all said I was going to be Brigade Commander. The first Admiral of our class. Okay. Where’s the beef? How do I get from here to there?
Maybe it was the bad influence of my sponsor, Dr. Rountree. The Audi Fox. The doubts I had about getting seasick. Airsick. Claustrophobia. About women joining the Brigade (honestly, they should have prepared us better for that one).
You’ve seen the other doubts and issues I had along the way. There was nothing really major in and of itself. But cumulatively? Yeah – that’s not good. The problem is that nobody counseled me with a single. Solitary. Word. Not any squad leader I ever had. Certainly not my sponsor Dr. “get the fuck out of the Navy while you can” Rountree.
Major Hodory never sat down his star Midshipman for a little chat. He should have! But, no. He was a cold fish – not even a salmon but a slimy sea slug. Honestly? I think he was the first real villain in my life. He was a tough Marine, sure – but never EVER a leader. Discipline was the for-all to him. Leadership from a thousand cuts (demerits).
So. There I was, a natural leader. It was effortless for me. Clean. Honest. Somebody should have told me that. That was my C.O.’s job. Instead, I think the Major took advantage of me. I was like a young kid in a family without a father, who takes the father’s responsibility on.
Major Hodory just set back and let ME do HIS job. With everything else going on, the stress damn near killed me. As it was, it gave me schizophrenia (we’ll see the proof in all its glory later on). FACT.
This is not on me. It’s on Major Hodory, pure and simple.
Back home in Texas at the end of my Youngster summer, I resolved to resign. Pop had retired and was building a house north of Austin. I didn’t even talk it over with him or Mom (or any of my classmates. No. Body). I just jumped in the Audi Fox and drove straight, non-stop back to Annapolis. Submitted my resignation. Boom. It’s done.
Except – it wasn’t. Days went by. Then weeks. The Superintendent and Commandant had me to a meeting, said they’d send me to Cape Kennedy to visit with NASA for a few weeks.
“Too late for that.”
Major Hodory never called me. Doesn’t that say it all? (Like, people submitted observations on each Midshipman at our “trials and tribulations” that summer – this guy was seasick as a dog. Airsick. Claustrophobic to a fault. Refused to march his command around – Hodory just ignored their reports. Let him suffer. This is fun!)
Let me state this categorically: The first and last and ONLY person in authority to EVER ask me to share my issues was the Duty Officer who asked for me to submit a statement on why I was resigning. I said, in effect, I was under constant stress that never diminished.
Stress? Because of all of the above unresolved issues. Career counseling for one. “What do you want to do?” Or maybe, “Can we help you learn how to march people around?” How about, “We can do things for seasickness and airsickness.”
I was caught in a super-achievement loop and nobody thought it was. Just. Too. Much.
Another way to put it, I think they were actually glad to see me go. Hodory. The Superintendent. Commandant. My classmates. Years later, right after the VA rated me 100% disabled, I was BANNED from our class reunion. Don’t come, said the 15 Company Commander. We won’t let you show your respects to our fallen comrades. Your good friend McInerney, who had recently deceased.
You’re banned! Reiterated by the President of our class – a retired admiral. What more can I say?
Anyway, back to being in limbo at Bancroft Hall, waiting to be discharged from the United States Navy. It drug on. And on. ON! (They were delaying it so that the academic year started, at which point I would be obligated to go enlisted to serve out my commitment.) I knew that. They knew that. It only made me hate the place that much more.
Then Pop had a heart attack back home.
I said, please finish the paperwork so I can return to my family. Enough is enough. They didn’t do squat. So, I called Congressman Rarick’s office, the man who appointed me. I explained my situation. I was on the road back to Texas within a day or two.
It was a sad day, that one. Very sad. I had arrived with such high hopes. Gave myself heart and soul. Sure, I screwed up plenty of times. But isn’t that how you build character – and loyalty? I was the best of the best. They failed to nurture me or teach me how to be even more. So, hey – I ain’t got nothing more to learn here, not if you won’t teach it to me.
I’m history. Thanks for the memories.
Now that I’ve written this, assembled all the events in short order, organized what happened, and sorted out my feelings, I do believe I made the right decision in leaving. I have no idea why people behaved the way they did, from my peers to my C.O. and beyond, but one thing’s for sure: my leaving was for the good of the service.
I wish I could say that everything is uphill from here. That Annapolis prepared me for a sterling career and a happy life. Sorry. We’ll have a little fun in Austin and then in The Big Easy, but afterwords, events will make Annapolis look like roses.
Best put your seat belt on. The ride gets pretty rough from here.
(Damned if I say this, but Annapolis did prepare me for it all.)