Duty First (7 page)

A new cadet appears beside Stitt to report that he has successfully completed one of the required tasks. Perhaps inspired by the casual surroundings, the new cadet stands in a relaxed posture. Stitt, who has a serious demeanor for a young man, doesn’t even vary his voice as he says, “What do you want?”

“I completed …”

“Don’t be dropping ‘sirs’ or I’ll be dropping you,” Stitt interrupts.

“Sir, I have completed the task, ‘don protective mask.’”

Stitt makes a note on a card that lists the names of all forty-plus new cadets in his charge. A moment later another new cadet walks by on his way to the Porta-John that serves the site. He is bareheaded.

“Where’s your helmet?” Stitt asks.

The new cadet looks at the platoon sergeant, then scrambles to retrieve the helmet, which he jams onto his head.

“Drop,” Stitt says, matter-of-factly.

The new cadet, who is also carrying his rifle, bends over to get into the push-up position, but he doesn’t know what to do with the weapon. Somehow he knows he shouldn’t just lay it on the ground.

“Like this,” Stitt says. He drops into the front-leaning rest, his rifle resting on the backs of his hands.

Stitt didn’t get to West Point by the traditional route. The son of an Air Force enlisted man and grandson of a World War II Army Air Forces veteran, Stitt enlisted to become a helicopter pilot. He ended up at Fort Bragg, flying in the back of the Army’s workhorse aircraft, the Blackhawk.

His lieutenant saw his potential and said to him, “Hey, Stitt, you’re not married, you’ve got good SATs; how about applying for West Point?”

“I told him, ‘No way, sir. I’m not a school guy’” Stitt says, narrating.

“And then one day I was on detail at the [82nd Airborne Division] museum. I’m sweeping up and I notice a display about General [Jim] Gavin.”

Gavin, USMA ‘29, commanded the 505th Parachute Infantry regiment on D Day, and later commanded the entire division. He is a legend in a unit with no shortage of heroes. Even as a general, he carried a rifle into battle. In today’s division headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, an entire wall is covered with photographs of division commanders; Gavin is the only one wearing a helmet in his photo.

“I looked in this case and I noticed that General Gavin was an enlisted man before he came to West Point,” Stitt says. “So I went back to the lieutenant and said I’d give it a try. I wrote the essays [for admission] the week they were due. I did everything at the last minute.”

Stitt’s claim to fame as a cadet is an attempted “spirit mission” just before the Army-Navy football game the previous fall.

“Spirit mission” is a catchall description for almost any high-spirited,
unorthodox activity that is designed to shake up the status quo; organizers of the most imaginative missions can taste a bit of fame. Douglas MacArthur, who was number-one man in his class of 1903, engineered the removal of the reveille cannon to the top of the clock tower in what is now Pershing Barracks. It took the post engineers, working in daylight, several days to remove the cannon the cadets had moved in one night. Other cadets have won a degree of notoriety and many of them have been punished heavily when caught, for such antics as filling the Commandant’s office from floor to ceiling with balled-up newspapers; for dragging cannons from Trophy Point to various places on post, such as in front of and aimed at the Superintendent’s quarters. A favorite of modern times is the kidnapping of the Naval Academy mascot, Bill the Goat.

“I’m the only cadet, as far as I know, who has ever climbed Battle Monument and kissed Victory,” Stitt says without smiling.

Battle Monument, a giant granite shaft that sits on Trophy Point, is topped with a statue of Winged Victory that sits some sixty feet above the ground. It is a memorial to the officers and men of the Regular Army who died in the Civil War.

Stitt and his cohorts planned meticulously, doing a good bit of reconnaissance and outfitting themselves like commandos, complete with headset radios and night-vision goggles they bought from a commercial outfitter. They used a water cannon to shoot a line over the flat top of the monument, then used the line to pull up a climbing rope. Stitt then used a system of knots to scale the vertical climbing rope.

“I got halfway up, then had to come down when the MPs [Military Police] came around. Then I climbed the whole thing.”

After tying himself in at the top, Stitt unrolled a long vertical banner with “GO ARMY” and an MIA symbol on it. The idea was that the sign would be visible to most of the corps when the cadets came outside for breakfast formation at 6:30. But the Military Police, on their regular patrols, spotted Stitt’s ground crew. Those cadets, perhaps thinking of the adage “Live to Fight Another Day” scattered, leaving Stitt alone on a tiny footing, looking for the first signs of dawn from
his perch. Although the MPs hadn’t spotted him, he couldn’t get down without help. After half an hour, he called down to the startled patrol. The worst part was that they made him bring the banner down with him.

“No one got to see it or even take a picture of it,” he says, disappointed.

It is time for lunch, and the new cadets have been issued their first MREs (Meal, Ready to Eat), the bagged, freeze-dried field rations. As with many of the things they do that are new to them, the new cadets defer to those with prior service. In this group where experience is measured in weeks, a new cadet with a year in uniform is an old veteran.

New Cadets Ryan Koolovitz and Deborah Welle coach the third and fourth squads as they navigate the tricky waters of eating Army rations. Koolovitz was in radio repair before attending the USMA Prep School. (Most enlisted soldiers admitted to West Point spend a year at the prep school, preparing for college-level work.) He has a narrow face and bright eyes and is older than most of the second class cadets. New Cadet Deborah Welle was in Advanced Training at Fort Sam Houston, preparing to be a lab tech in the medical field, when she was accepted directly into West Point. She skipped prep school because of her academic record and high test scores. Welle, who smiles all the time, is the first person in her family to pursue a bachelor’s degree. She is already thinking about her commissioning and graduation day: She wants her grandfather, a veteran of World War II Battle of the Bugle, to pin on one second lieutenant bar while her drill sergeant from Army basic training pins on the other.

In the brown packages, the meals look the same. New Cadet Joshua Renicker, a quiet, red-haired football player, studies the labels intently and eats everything he can peel out of the plastic. He is worried about losing too much weight during Beast, a common concern of the coaching staffs as well. Other new cadets shun some of the side dishes beans and peanut butter and hard crackers—as dry as road dust. Everyone eats the candy.

New Cadet Zachary Lange, a recruited hurdler from Minnesota, inspects his first MRE. He rips the top off a foil packet and squeezes the pasty contents into his mouth.

“What’s that?” someone asks.

“I don’t know,” Lange says, chewing thoughtfully.

The upperclass cadets sit in a group nearby and talk about the most memorable event of so far. They agree that yesterday’s was a toss-up. At a swimming test, one new cadet, male, stripped down completely to put on his bathing suit. In a mixed group. Another new cadet took off his shirt to reveal a decidedly unmilitary nipple ring. (Body ornaments are supposed to be removed.)

As they finish their meals and fold the plastic wrappers, the new cadets talk about who is resigning. (“Quitting,” a word heavy with judgment, is the most commonly used term to describe leaving the academy. No one ever says, “so-and-so wants to transfer to the University of Oklahoma.”)

Rob Olson attributes these early resignations to the schedule of the first week of CBT: The new cadets spent most of their time standing in line at issue points to draw equipment or be fitted for uniforms; attending welcome lectures by the Superintendent, the Commandant, the Dean; taking tests for advanced-placement courses. They spent the July 4th holiday on guided tours of West Point’s historical sites; they go to chapel on Sunday. There was none of the adventure promised in the recruiting literature. There was no time off, just busy work and constant commands in a strange new jargon.

Olson thinks it’s critical to get the new cadets into the field and let them try something new. “I tell [the cadre] that if you can sponsor two or three consecutive successes you won’t lose one new cadet [to resignation].”

As the new cadets finish lunch, the talk moves quickly to the day’s big test: the gas chamber. This small block building, which sits some thirty yards from the break area, will be flooded with CS, the code name for the military version of tear gas. The new cadets will go in and, once inside, remove the mask. The stated purpose of the exercise
is to give the trainees confidence in their equipment, specifically, in the protective mask. But there is another purpose here as well.

West Point believes that development takes place outside a person’s comfort zone. Going into a small building filled with tear gas is outside the experience of most of these young people, and it is definitely outside their comfort zone. It is something completely new, and thus it is one of the essential elements of the West Point experience: a chance for the new cadets to stretch themselves.

“There’s a priest up there,” one of the cadre members tells the new cadets as he points up the hill to the chamber. (One of the chaplains is visiting the training site.) “But not because we think you’re gonna die or anything.”

New Cadet Marat Daveltshin is from Kyrgyzstan, the first “allied cadet” from a former republic of the Soviet Union. Stocky, with blue eyes and a trace of blond hair left on his scalp, Daveltshin is twenty-one and already has a university degree. He told Major Olson, “My country set me up for success.”

Daveltshin listens intently to every instruction in English. He came to America two days before R-Day; up until then his whole experience of speaking English was in school. As the new cadets wait in formation, Marat speaks Russian with Ben Steadman, a new cadet who was an Army linguist with a Russian specialty. Olson says Steadman was put in the squad so that Daveltshin would have someone to help him navigate the demands of Beast. Steadman tries out his language skills; Daveltshin helps him with pronunciation, then compliments him.

“He’ll go back and be a general,” Steadman says.

“Not right away,” Daveltshin corrects him. “It will take five or six years.”

Cadet Bob Friesema, the tall, earnest redhead from Wisconsin, admits to being nervous. As his classmates chatter and a cadre member briefs them, he glances around at the smallish building and fingers the strap on his mask carrier. Friesema is one of the quieter members of Grady Jett’s squad, though because of his size (he is six
four), he cannot help but be noticed. He listens intently to every word of instruction, and he gives the impression that he is afraid he will do something wrong.

The plan is this: The new cadets will enter the chamber from the back door and be asked a few questions—name, hometown, the mission of the Military Academy. The idea is to get them to breathe while they’re inside, to see how well the mask filters out the gas. Then they’ll be told to remove the mask and say something else. This is when the gas will start to sting the eyes, the back of the neck, the face. Sweat exacerbates things, and everyone is sweating. The gas will cling to clothing and hands, so the new cadets are warned not to rub their eyes. They are also told that some people are more susceptible than others; some will come out vomiting, others will blink a few times and move on. Standing in ranks, the new cadets look at one another, as if they can determine who will be most affected.

When it comes to something unpleasant, the only place for a leader is up front, so the chain of command goes in first. Platoon leader Dave Hazelton, a firstie, says he’ll do ten push-ups (outside the chamber) for every new cadet who can recite the mission of the Military Academy after removing the mask. Hazelton, Platoon Sergeant Stitt, and the squad leaders go in. All but Stitt come out.

The new cadets go in the back door, then come out the front coughing and gagging, several of them trailing streams of vomit. But they do not touch their eyes with their hands. A medic stands by for any serious reactions; most of them just walk around quickly, letting the air push the CS off of them. One new cadet, clearly in awe, comes out talking about Platoon Sergeant Greg Stitt, who has stayed inside the chamber. He pulled off his mask and is doing jumping jacks while he recites various pieces of new cadet knowledge.

New Cadet Omar Bilal is from Capitol Heights, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. When asked by a classmate if the chamber was bad, he flashes a smile and says, “Nah, the pollution in D.C. is so bad this didn’t even bother me.”

Pete Haglin, who is determined to follow his father into the field artillery, spits and coughs. “I have so much acne medication on my
face all the time I didn’t even notice if this stuff burns; my face burns all the time.”

Bob Friesema comes out yelling, as if he’d just scored the winning touchdown. When his squad leader, Grady Jett, asks him how it was, he answers, “That was great, sir!”

Chalk up one of the successes that Major Rob Olson and the chain of command are looking for.

At the end of the training day, the new cadets move off the hilltop on foot, following a narrow blacktop road that takes them down to a large clearing where they will eat. The evening meal is already there: a dozen insulated metal cans, large steel canisters, called silver bullets, that contain cold drinks. There are stacks of paper products, trays of bread, and water for hand-washing. The cadre files through first, washing their hands, then taking their places to serve the food. The new cadets follow, helmets on, chin-straps buttoned, rifles slung at diagonals across their backs.

It is a comfortable evening, not too hot, and the new cadets spread out in clusters on the grass. Grady Jett, the Army football player who emphasizes teamwork above all, says a few words to Steadman, his prior-service new cadet. (Like many of the experienced new cadets, Steadman will often act as an unofficial assistant squad leader.) Steadman collects his squadmates and they sit together.