Duty First (39 page)

“Good-looking jab,” White calls out as the shorter cadet snaps Haglin’s head back. “Use a combination now.”

White expects them to think on their feet, to make quick decisions. The cadets know, intellectually, that they aren’t going to be hurt badly (although boxing does cause a few concussions every round). Acting on that is another matter.

At the beginning of the second round, Haglin enters the ring with more determination. His opponent wades in gamely, though without
finesse, and fires a couple of powerful jabs. Tired now, he also drops his arms obligingly every time he punches. Haglin sees it, takes advantage of the mistake and lands a few jabs of his own, more sure of himself than in the first round.

Few of the cadets here show natural ability (Haglin’s opponent is an exception); but the worst appellation to earn in boxing isn’t that of being a poor boxer—there are poor boxers by the double handful—but of being a coward. For that reason most of the plebes are willing to take a few punches just to get inside and land a solid blow.

Size is no indication of who will fight. A short cadet pulls his arms in tight, his fists beside his forehead, and glides in close to his opponent, coming in so low that his knee bangs the floor. All during this approach he is getting punched in the head; because he doesn’t have much reach, the shorter fighter has to get in close to connect.

Forty-five minutes into the class Major White calls the plebes together; they stand, big gloves on their hips, breathing heavily. Their gray T-shirts are black with sweat at the collars and armpits.

“How do you feel?” White asks the class. They nod, grunt in some way that sounds vaguely positive.

“This is a game of chess in here. Only instead of losing your queen, you get punched in the head. You’ve got to think.”

White moves about the ring, looking every cadet in the eye. Some of the plebes are a little disoriented. The next class, they know, they’ll go up against the cadets in the other section, the ones in the next room who are learning with other instructors. They know the other men; they might be in the same classes, in the same company. They might even be roommates. But in the ring, the other boxer is just a big red target, a pair of gloves looking to connect with your nose.

“I’m going to tell you straight up,” White says. “I don’t want to go over there and lose.”

He is low-key, his voice strong.

“Now, some of the other instructors are going to tell their people what to do for the first three or four punches. They’re going to say, ‘Go in there, throw two jabs, then a combination,’ or ‘Two jabs, then a
straight right.’ The plan is that if the boxer doesn’t have to think, they’ll get over that initial nervousness.”

A couple of cadets nod when he mentions nerves.

“I’m going to make it even easier on you guys. I want you to walk across that ring, walk right up to your opponent and throw a big right cross. That’s going to break the ice.”

There are a few laughs in the crowd as they imagine how it might feel to take charge of the fight from the beginning.

“You’re both going to be nervous; hit him first and you’re going to pass all your nervousness over to your opponent. Now, a third of the guys I teach knock their opponents down when they do this.”

The cadets in the audience chance a look around. One-third sounds like a big piece; but no one is about to dispute the towering figure in the ring. They’re thinking about how to get through the next class, how to win a bout with a fighter they haven’t yet laid eyes on. As always, the clock moves toward the next requirement.

At the end of the class Haglin removes his equipment; his face is red with perspiration and has deep lines from the tight-fitting headgear. He watches his classmates stow their gloves and gear, makes sure the lockers are neat. Then the cadets form two files facing the door. Haglin calls the class to attention, salutes the instructor, turns, and dismisses the class. The sixteen men shout, “Beat the snot out of the other section, sir!” Then they hustle out of the room.

Haglin lives in Lee Barracks, the farthest from the Mess Hall, gym, and academic buildings. While many of the oldest barracks have been renovated and updated, Lee, built in 1962, is a bit shabby in comparison. Across the small courtyard, there is evidence of construction: a long plastic trash chute hangs from an open window into a dumpster. Because the rooms being renovated are empty, the cadets in Lee live three to a two-person room.

Haglin just lost his roommate, who left abruptly because of bad grades. On Saturday night Haglin was given twenty-four hours to move into a room with two other plebes. He moved everything, but
the room is still in disarray and he isn’t sure where some of his uniforms are. A sign on the door announces “PMI,” (afternoon inspection) which is a more relaxed state of room repair than AMI (morning inspection) and SAMI (Saturday morning inspection—which requires the greatest preparation). The chain of command has allowed Haglin and his roommates some slack; they are allowed to have what is, by West Point standards, a messy room.

The L shaped desks, with space for computers, overwhelm the room. A set of bunk beds is pressed up against one wall; a tall dresser at the foot crowds the front of the wardrobe. The opposite wall holds a sink with two clothes hampers and medicine cabinets, a rifle rack, and coat closet. The closet, made for two sets of uniforms, is stuffed with three. On the floor beneath the beds are ranks of polished shoes and boots. The room has the rank smell peculiar to teenage boys: gym socks and athletic shoes and body odor.

On the top bunk, a blanket thrown like a coverlet seems startlingly out of place here. Haglin folds it, then goes into a desk drawer and pulls out a powdered sports drink, which he pours into a plastic bottle. He fills the bottle at the sink as he talks. He turns on the stereo, keeps the volume low. Study conditions. A Counting Crows song comes on, but just barely. Haglin talks about his Saturday night, which he spent moving his uniforms, books, computer, and issued gear from another floor. Still, the work didn’t cut in on his social schedule.

“There’s almost no social life here,” he says. “It’s a big deal if a couple of us get a pizza and hang out in someone’s room to watch a movie [on a computer monitor].”

The plebes of this class are the first to have computers that will play movies from compact discs. No one from the class of 2001 on up misses the chance to comment that the plebes are going soft. The reality is three or four plebes, sitting on the cold floor, or on the hard desks or footlockers, trying to watch a feature movie on a computer screen.

On his bookshelf Haglin has a frame with a collage of photos. One shows a sign in front of his high school; the movable letters read,
“Pete Haglin: Good Luck at West Point.” There are several shots of his family: one of him, his parents, and two sisters; another, a studio shot, shows him and his sisters, posing with their dog.

“I had a girlfriend at home,” he says. “She sent me letters all through Beast, and packages of food. But then when I was at home [over Christmas leave] she started getting all serious and talking about our life together after college.”

He shakes his head, takes a sip of his drink. “I can’t imagine planning that far ahead right now.”

Haglin’s roommates come in. Cole is tall, with light brown hair, and a cool politeness. Berliner, the other roommate, has a boyish face and pleasant smile, curly hair, and small, round glasses. The three of them talk about an English paper due that day, then about the lunch menu (which they must memorize), then about Cole’s move to another table in the Mess Hall.

“I was on some laid-back tables for a couple of months,” Cole says. “I got used to it. Now I’m at a hard table. The other day I gave the table comm a glass that wasn’t new, the plastic was a little cloudy. He hollered at me and said, ‘That’s a plebe cup,’ and sent it back down.”

Like all the plebes, these three have a finely honed sense of justice. They complain that the upper class take their food first, while the plebes get theirs last. No one at the table eats until the plebes have completed their duties, but the plebes notice when upperclass cadets take larger portions.

Haglin gathers his towel and excuses himself to go shower.

Berliner is from Bethel, Alaska; a town, he proudly reports, that you “can’t drive to. You’ve got to fly or take a boat.”

“I was surprised at how much people looked up to me because I was going to West Point,” Berliner says. “Our town only ever sent one kid here before this, and he didn’t make it through the first semester. When I was back home [at Christmas], they even asked me to be a guest speaker at this dinner in town,” he says.

“But it brings some pressure,” he admits. “Like you have to be on at all times.”

Berliner ties a piece of flat rubber to one of the posts of the bunk
bed, unfolds a paper that shows drawings of rehabilitative exercises, and begins moving his arms.

“I did this on the Indoor Obstacle Course,” he reports, indicating his shoulder. “Wrenched it pulling myself up onto the shelf.”

He managed to go on for a few more yards, but nearly lost his grip when he sidled out onto the bars ten feet above the gym floor. That’s when he thought he should stop. Boxing didn’t go much better for him.

“I’m famous for getting knocked out,” he says unself-consciously.

Berliner got knocked down for an eight count, but got back up and resumed the fight.

“I found out later, after talking to the guy I boxed, that he was holding back. He was afraid he was going to hurt me.” He smiles. “And I thought I was getting better.”

Berliner landed a few punches, so whatever sympathy he had engendered disappeared. His opponent knocked him out. He tells this story while exercising his stick-thin arms.

Haglin returns from the locker room and begins to dress. He has a tattoo on his right shoulder, a squarish character. It is his Korean name:
Yung
, which means “Dragon.”

“I got it over Columbus Day Weekend,” he reports. “It’s OK, as long as it doesn’t show when you’re in uniform.”

The tattoo is one aspect of his “Preserve Pete Haglin” campaign. Body decorating provides a chance to express himself in a fashion that isn’t designed by West Point, that isn’t directed at some institutional goal. Haglin says the stocky boxer who pushed him around the ring this morning has a pierced tongue; incredibly, he wears the post all the time.

“If you really try, if you know it’s there, you can see it when he talks,” Haglin says. “He took it out during Beast, though.”

Haglin and Berliner compare backgrounds. Both Army brats, they both lived in Korea as children. For Haglin, it was part homecoming, because he lived with his mother’s parents for a while.

Cole, who has several military history books on his shelf, has no
military experience in his family. His parents didn’t want him to come to West Point.

“They didn’t want me in harm’s way,” he says.

“My sister did well at Cornell. They were kind of hoping I’d follow her. They wanted to make sure I came here for the right reasons. Now they support me and are proud of me.”

When Cole leaves, Berliner and Haglin exchange glances. Cole is a little too gung ho for their tastes. They point out the long line of boots and shoes under his bunk. Beside the footgear issued to cadets, there is a shiny pair of “jump boots,” popular with paratroopers. They shine well but are no good in the field; they’re associated with garrison, with polished floors and offices. They are not the muddy boots of “real soldiers.” There is also a pair of highly shined “jungle boots,” a Vietnam-era design with canvas uppers, made specifically for hot, wet conditions.

Berliner says Cole bought the boots with his own money even though they aren’t needed.

“I want to be in the military and all,” Haglin reports. “Being in the combat arms will be great. But I’m not going to go out and get a high and tight [buzz haircut] right now.”

“I don’t want to miss out completely on the college experience,” he says, leaning over his bed and pulling the blanket taut.

“I want to be Pete Haglin as much as possible, and not just Cadet Haglin.”

Later, in Grant Hall over an iced tea, Haglin admits to being a bit tired of the plebe game.

“I hate being everybody’s monkey boy,” he says. “We just look like such dorks walking around. ‘Good morning sir! Good morning ma’am!’”

He also misses being able to choose his own friends. Haglin, who grew up on army posts, knows many upperclass cadets, other Army brats a year or two ahead of him. He swam with them, played ball, rode bikes. Now, they’re off-limits because of rules against fraternization with the fourth class.

“The hazing is no big deal,” he says. “I mean, at a fraternity people go through worse.”

But he is tired of it: The move on Saturday into a room that was already full with two men; the fact that he can’t talk to his friends; his “monkey-boy” status, fretting over whether or not an upperclass cadet gets a plastic glass that’s a little too cloudy. Within these confines, Haglin looks for ways to assert himself.

“You control your own destiny,” he says. “I told my squad leader that I wanted to work for a pride pass,” he says. “Pride passes are like time off for good behavior.”

Haglin’s squad leader told him exactly what he would have to do, and Haglin succeeded. At a football game in the fall Haglin convinced some Rutgers University coeds to sit in the Army stands with the cadets.

“‘Good motivation, Haglin,’ they told me.”

He didn’t need their praise, but he was happy to take it because it translated to a weekend pass.

“You tell them ‘I want to earn
x
, they’ll tell you what you need to do,” he says approvingly. “My squad leader is concerned with my grades. He doesn’t BS me just because I’m a plebe; he treats me like a person. Last thing in the world I want to do is get him in trouble because I’m not performing.”

Haglin grudgingly admits that West Point has helped him in some ways. He is a better student and studies much more at the Academy than he would at another college. There is a bit of Epictetus about him, in the way he keeps his personal life, the life inside him, separate. Cadet Haglin spent Saturday night moving into an already crowded room with two cadets who would not be his first choice for roommates. Cadet Haglin doesn’t like his haircut, or the “dorky” way he has to greet upperclass cadets.