Duty First (46 page)

“Looking real good there,” he says to one, who salutes without looking up. “You sleep under a rock?”

Out on the Plain, where Second Regiment is forming up, the grass is covered with a thick morning fog. The cadets in white over gray look ghostlike as they wade through the mist.

This morning’s ceremony is a promotion for the under classes. The second, third, and fourth class cadets wear the insignia of their new rank on their epaulets; the epaulets are turned upside down. During the ceremony, they’ll spin the shoulder insignia over, so that the new rank shows.

Captain Brian Turner is here, his arms crossed against the morning chill. He smells of mouthwash and soap; his uniform, as always, is perfectly pressed. He salutes Olson, gives a perfunctory greeting. Olson goes off to join his own company.

Firstie Nick Albrecht, one of F-2’s cheering section for the Sandhurst Competition, is in class uniform in the rear of the formation. He wears a name-tag and the black shield of a senior, but no insignia of rank and no branch insignia. This is the same configuration the recently dismissed Chad Jones wore, the almost uniform of those on their way out.

“He’s graduating, but maybe he shouldn’t,” Turner says angrily.

He says this for Albrecht’s benefit. The cadet, who is only a few feet away, pretends not to hear. “He can’t even get the uniform right. A bunch of these guys got carried away and threw away their white over gray. Then they say, ‘Sir, nobody
told
me to keep my white over gray’ ” He imitates a childish whine as he says this.

“That’s a kid’s answer. I ask them if they think they can pull that kind of stuff in the Army.”

There are six or seven cadets—firsties—in the wrong uniform, dark gray shirts and overseas caps. They stand out in the formation of white hats and white shirts. Albrecht holds a deflated football.

“It’s kind of an award,” he says. He explains that it’s a tradition in F-2, for the first class to give the football to the second class cadet who can hold his drink better than anyone else. Albrecht holds up the partially inflated ball and shows off the names and dates, which go back to the nineteen sixties.

He leaves the story unfinished.

“Go ahead,” Turner prompts. Albrecht doesn’t respond.

“I wouldn’t let them have a drinking party,” Turner says.

Around them, the thousand cadets of the regiment are formed in a giant horseshoe. In each company, bleary-eyed firsties promote the second class, then move down the ranks to the third and finally, the fourth class.

Albrecht and Turner pointedly ignore each other.

Turner knows that command-sanctioned drinking parties are an anathema in the Army; one DUI conviction will end a career. Not to mention the fact that soldiers expect officers—even twenty-two-year-old lieutenants—to comport themselves like adults, not like fraternity boys. But the cadets know that Turner doesn’t drink alcohol; they figure that his decision is personal.

“The cadets told me I was one of the toughest Tacs in the corps,” Turner says. “Which is just a polite way of calling me an asshole. They thought I was too much in their stuff, that I was getting too involved.”

Arms folded, he looks out over the formation. There is no joking around at this hour.

“Maybe. Sometimes that’s part of being in charge. You know, when I was a cadet it used to be: ‘Do this because I said so.’ I tried to stop that. I tell them why they’re doing something so they’ll understand when they get to the army. Some get it, some don’t. But they can’t say they never heard it.”

Turner is disappointed that only one firstie, Kevin Bradley, took him up on an offer to “come by the office to talk about the army.” This especially troubles him because one of his chief complaints about his own superiors is that they do not make themselves available to mentor younger officers.

Turner’s overall level of frustration also reflects a sense of alienation from his peers. Brigadier General Ron Johnson, Turner’s former math instructor and something of a mentor for the younger officer, said Brian felt left out when other Tacs went to play golf or go fishing, two things Turner doesn’t do. Johnson told him to take a day off and learn.

“Tacs aren’t given enough latitude, enough decision-making
authority,” Turner says. “There’s too much due process. Tacs are almost afraid to give a low military development grade. It’s not a matter of, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’ Instead, it becomes. ‘I don’t want to embarrass my boss.’ ”

Turner and the other Tacs are required to defend the grades they give cadets, and the Brigade Tactical Officer, Colonel Adamczyk, asks tough questions about low scores. Turner knows this because he just recommended a failing military development grade—and dismissal from West Point—for a second class cadet.

“He was on the overweight program, he hadn’t passed his Indoor Obstacle Course or the APFT [Army Physical Fitness Test].”

By second class year, the government has invested a great deal of money in each cadet; they are not dismissed without a lot of scrutiny. Was everything done to help the cadet meet the standard? Did the cadet understand the seriousness of his situation? Turner didn’t see the scrutiny as part of a check, a nod to due process. He takes it as an indictment of his judgment.

He mentions his own upcoming fitness report, his report card for the entire year. Officers are evaluated on their performance; they are also compared to their peers in the same job. Since Tacs are carefully chosen from among the most successful officers in the army, Turner is competing in a fast group.

“I’m pretty down about it,” he says, “because I don’t really know where I stand. I guess all I can say is that I’ve given 100 percent every day since I became an officer. Guess that means nothing. I get tired of going through this.”

By graduation week, Turner has decided to make a change. He told the Army that he wants to leave his primary specialty as an armor officer and work in the Acquisition Corps, which negotiates contracts to supply the Army’s vast needs.

“I know I have what it takes to be [an armor] battalion commander,” he says. “I’m not sure I’d ever get the chance, though, and I don’t want to wait around all those years to find out.”

Yet he doesn’t know much about the Acquisition Corps, and confesses
that he signed up for it because it sounded like something he could use later in life.

“I can still change my mind about it,” he says, twice.

The pressures of being a single officer on an isolated post, of being a minority, of competing in a field with some of the best officers of his rank, are piling up on him. He needs a chance to unwind, to get away from West Point and get some perspective; there is an opportunity in the three weeks before he begins work as a Beast Tac. He plans to take a long weekend.

The fog is lifting off the field. Turner stands aside as the cadets march past, then up the front steps of Washington Hall and through the big Mess Hall doors for another twenty-minute meal.

For four years the class of 1999 has been counting the days until graduation. It has always been far in the future. Finally, shockingly, unbelievably, it is here.

The steep road leading to Michie Stadium is filled with underclass cadets in white over gray. The platoons tramp behind company guidons and sing marching songs.

Just below the south end of the stadium, in the shade of some trees by the beautiful alumni center, a white tent fly is set up for the families of F-2’s graduating cadets. Later in the day there will be a pinning ceremony; the new lieutenants, changed into the dress uniforms of officers, will have their gold bars pinned on by family members.

On the football field, the combined choirs and glee club sit on low bleachers beside the USMA band. The VIPs onstage include a US Senator and several members of Congress; the Secretary of the Army Luis Caldera, USMA ‘78; and General Dennis Reimer, ‘62, the soon-to-retire Chief of Staff of the Army. Many of the families clustered in
the stands learned from their experience during yesterday’s sundrenched parade: there are a few parasols in view.

The stage is set up in the eastern end zone, and long metal benches for the graduating cadets face the dais. Behind the seniors sit the tactical officers and NCOs. With the exception of the honor graduates, who occupy in the first row, the cadets are arranged by company. Beside the ramps leading off the stage are four members of the Class of 1949, which has unofficially adopted the Class of 1999. Three retired generals and a colonel (the class’s most-decorated combat veteran) will hand each graduate a small box containing the gold bars of a second lieutenant, inscribed on the back “USMA ’49–’99.”

On a bench in the press section sits a First Sergeant who wears the shoulder patch of the Second Infantry Division. The former Tac NCO is on leave from his assignment in Korea and has come up here to see “his” cadets graduate. In front of him, the Tacs sweat in their heavy uniforms; they tap their black shoes as the band plays.

Captain Gillian Boice, Jacque Messel’s Tac, is looking for some tissues, just in case she cries.

“I tell my cadets that I’m strong, but I’m passionate.”

Everything happens quickly now. The class marches in to applause from the stands. Their sabers clatter as they settle, tightly packed on the metal benches. When they sit, they remove their white hats. The Superintendent goes to the microphone; he invites the cadets to stand and applaud their families, to thank them for all their support. The cadets do so enthusiastically.

Christman then mentions that he was a plebe at General Reimer’s graduation in 1962. One memory of that day stands out clearly, he says, almost forty years later. He pauses for comic timing. “I was thinking, ‘Plebe year is over and I’m going home on leave.’ ”

The graduates laugh politely.

Christman also remembers the speaker. President John F. Kennedy promised the cadets that the world was changing and the future would hold many challenges for them.

“Kennedy was right,” Christman says. “And the same holds true for you.”

It is the kind of pronouncement they’ve been hearing for four years: standard graduation-speech maxims. With all these families present, it would be impolite for Christman to point out that many of the cadets present that day in 1962 would die in Vietnam within a few years of their commander-in-chiefs speech.

General Dennis Reimer is the keynote speaker. This will be his last official function at West Point; he retires in two weeks, after thirty-seven years in uniform. Reimer starts off with a funny story about soldiers, then his talk drags on into a loose collection of quotations from other people’s speeches. The audience drifts, and the families in the stands fidget. He is, mercifully, brief.

The combined choirs stand to sing “The Corps.” The cadets and graduates, who memorized the song as part of plebe-year knowledge, join in, singing about the Long Gray Line.

The Dean of the Academic Board, Brigadier General Fletcher Lamkin, takes the microphone. “These graduating cadets have been awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science,” he says.

The first two rows of cadets stand; these are the honor graduates. Walt Cooper, the number-one man in order of merit, is ranked first in his class. He will attend the U.S. Army Ranger School—an intense small-unit tactics course—over the summer. In the fall he will move to England, where he will study as a Rhodes Scholar.

Kevin Bradley, who is number twenty in order of merit, receives his diploma from General Reimer, shakes hands with Secretary Caldera, then comes off the stage smiling. After the honor graduates, the newly elected class president and the first captain receive their diplomas.

Then two readers and two presenters line up at the head of the twin ramps; they read the names more rapidly. Officials have taken great care to get the correct pronunciation of every cadet’s name;
each white tube has the typed name and the phonetic spelling. The litany of names is punctuated with wild cheering as families in the stands acknowledge their cadets. Some of the cadets are overwhelmed as they come off the stage. They dance, clasp friends in tight embraces. Many of them are on the verge of tears, and quite a few fall to their knees to pray.

As the graduates of E-2 come off the stage, Major Rob Olson and Sergeant First Class Mercier position themselves alongside the ramp. Olson, brimming with emotion, hugs each of his charges.

Suddenly the class breaks into wild cheering for the class “goat,” the cadet ranked dead-last in order of merit. She receives her diploma with one hand; in the other she holds a brown paper bag containing a dollar bill from each of 937 classmates. It is, tradition holds, her reward for keeping the bottom of the class from falling out.

After the presentation of diplomas, the Corps of Cadets is invited to sing the Alma Mater. The seniors, the underclass cadets, and old grads in the stands sing along. The song is unabashedly emotional, a holdover from a romantic era; but for these few minutes, at least, all cynicism seems banished, and every man and woman is a believer in duty, honor, country.

The tune is soft and slow, almost a lullaby.

The music swells at the end; even the least musically inclined are singing now.