Duty First (6 page)

“What’s your most important mission?” Olson asks Bradley as the cadet looks around the area, counts the squads ready for company drill, and figures out how many are still upstairs.

“Sir, the most important thing is to get everyone out there on time for the parade,” Bradley says.

“And they all gotta know how to march,” Olson adds.

Bradley smiles. “Yes, sir.”

“Keep focused on that. Let the squad leaders have as much time as you can afford to give them—which may not be as much as they want.”

Kevin Bradley gets the distinction, and moments later the 158 new cadets of Alpha Company are forming for the last block of drill instruction before their first ceremony on West Point’s famous parade ground, called “the Plain.”

Meanwhile, the families of new cadets wait near the entrances to Central Area, which are closed off by heavy chains. At the corner nearest the old First Division barracks, a hundred or so family members sit and stand, peering into the area and trying to catch a glimpse of their new cadet. Many of them use binoculars. A couple of teenage girls in shorts sit cross-legged on the ground, their shoulders slumped forward like tired sentries. Suddenly one of them straightens, points, and yells, “There she is!” She is pointing at what looks like an undifferentiated mass of gray. With their new haircuts, new clothes, new way of walking, it would be difficult even for a family member to pick out one new cadet among the hundreds visible at a distance. The missing sister, even if she were only a few yards away, is no longer allowed to turn and wave, so the family has to be content with the unconfirmed sighting.

A hundred yards away, the inside of the Cadet Library is cool and quiet. Just inside the reference room is a long display case, twelve feet of polished cherry with a glass front. In the center, a wooden plaque says “General of the Army” the gold lettering is flanked with five stars in a pentagon pattern. Displayed there are the class rings of three of the West Pointers who wore five stars: Douglas MacArthur, 1903; Omar Bradley and Dwight Eisenhower, both 1915.

The rest of the shelves are a display of class rings dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. It’s part museum piece (West Point
claims to be the first undergraduate institution to give class rings); and part something else: a memorial, a
memento mori
, a reminder, to any cadet who might stop and read the tiny inscriptions, of the Academy’s ultimate mission.

There are only a few librarians around. The reference room is quiet. Outside, the clouds are breaking up over the parade field. The library’s big arched windows frame the statue of General George S. Patton, 1909, which stands directly across the street. A dozen people in civilian clothes, in shorts and sensible shoes, circle the general, snap his picture, or pose in front of the statue’s base.

At 4:00 the parade is about to start. The Plain is a flat patch of emerald on a bluff above the river. One side is braced by the long granite wings of Eisenhower and MacArthur Barracks. Opposite are aluminum bleachers, the massed cannons and tall trees of Trophy Point, then the long valley and flat silver plate of the Hudson River.

The cadet companies pour out of the sally ports when the band strikes the first chords. The cadre members are dressed in white: starched trousers and high-collared tunics. The new cadets wear short-sleeved white shirts and gray trousers, white gloves, and no hats. This is the only parade, for their entire four years, in which their heads will be uncovered. (There is not enough time in the day’s tight schedule to fit everyone for hats.)

From the stands, from a distance, their movements are surprisingly smooth. They salute, stand at parade rest, then back to attention on command. Brigadier General John Abizaid administers the oath, his voice echoing against the barracks and the green hills beyond.

For those families who came here thinking that West Point was just another college on a list of schools their talented sons and daughters might have attended, the sight of all those uniforms and the solemnity of the Oath Ceremony reminds them that this is something different. They stand on the bleachers to take in the sight, and the spectacle is impressive. This morning’s thirteen hundred civilians have been changed dramatically, and if they’re not yet soldiers, they are no longer high school students.

Up in the aluminum stands, two women who look remarkably alike, perhaps the mother and grandmother of a new cadet, sing with gusto when the band plays the National Anthem. Across the whole of the bleachers, there is a good deal more enthusiasm for the song than is usually heard at baseball games. There is a flurry of commands and sharp salutes, though the flags stir only occasionally in the heavy summer air. Then the companies pass in review, wheeling by the Superintendent (the three-star general who is both president of the college and military commander of West Point) and the Commandant (the one-star who is responsible for cadets’ military training). There are ripples of excitement as the cadets pass close to the bleachers, while families strain to spot a son or daughter. The new cadets tramp by at 120 steps per minute, on past the generals, on past their families; they wheel sharply in front of the white confection that is the Superintendent’s House, then, quickly, the class of 2002 disappears back into the dark tunnels.

For the mothers and fathers, sisters, brothers, and grandparents, the parade marks the end of something momentous. They will leave West Point without the children who have been with them for seventeen or eighteen years. Understandably, the families take their time
getting out of the stands, as if they’re unsure that their part in the drama is over.

In the barracks, the members of West Point’s Class of 2002 have hours of unfamiliar tasks ahead of them. There is equipment to draw and store, rules to be memorized, whole new ways of speaking and eating and walking to be mastered. Somewhere in the course of the evening, they will be told to sit down and write a letter home. Most of them will manage only a line or two, something about all the work to be done on this, the first of many long days ahead of them.

T
he first days of Beast Barracks slide by in a blur for the new cadets. If they are remarkable for anything, it is for the mundane and seemingly endless nature of the tasks to be learned: how to wear various uniforms, how to salute, eat in the Mess Hall, march, carry a rifle. But over the first week, the details add up, and by the time the new cadets climb down off the trucks for their first day of field training, they have started to look like GIs.

They clamber out of the big five-ton trucks onto the dusty road wearing battle dress uniform, or BDUs, the familiar baggy camouflage. They carry big green rucksacks, with rolled foam pads slung across the top; load-bearing equipment (called LBE); a set of suspenders and a belt from which hang canteens, first aid, and ammunition pouches. They wear the coal-bucket Kevlar helmet, which everyone calls a K-pot, and carry the M16A2 rifle, standard issue for the Army and Marine Corps. In the past few days they have learned to put all of this together: the hooks and buckles and belts and straps,
so that they at least look like soldiers. They have learned how to form into squads and platoons, to respond to marching commands to get them from one place to another. They stand straight, head and eyes to the front, and wait until they’re told to move.

This first day of field training has brought them to a pleasant, shady hillside on West Point’s sprawling reservation, the “NBC Site,” where they will be introduced to Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare. They will learn how to wear the “MOPP” suit, a charcoal-treated coat and pants that, with its rubber gloves and overshoes, is supposed to keep the soldier safe from chemical weapons. They will learn to wear the protective masks, the huge, black-rubber headpiece with its monstrous goggle-eyes and a green plastic hood. Wearing it is like wearing a head-sized, portable sauna.

The biggest challenges for the new cadets are simple tasks: learning to wear their specialized equipment, for instance. Upperclass cadets like junior Greg Stitt are on to more difficult things: Stitt is learning to be a platoon sergeant. Just as the squad leaders take care of their ten or eleven new cadets, Greg Stitt takes care of four squads, seeing to all the details that make the machine run smoothly: food, water, transportation, accountability. He gives instructions to the squad leaders, passes information from the platoon leader—a senior—and generally acts as a second-in-command and chief of operations.

Stitt stands in a central location, in the same uniform as the new cadets, including the weapon. As they complete their various tasks, the new cadets report to Stitt, who records their successes on a card. New cadets who don’t complete the summer’s required training will lose their spring leave and take the tests over again while the rest of the class enjoys the break. This is another innovation of the Commandant, Brigadier General John Abizaid: Rewards are tied to performance, just as in the regular Army, where a soldier who hasn’t mastered the required skills is not promoted.

Stitt, who was an Army enlisted man before coming to West Point, thinks these are good changes.

“The Comm has some good ideas; he’s moving this place to be more like the army.”

Stitt looks up as a new cadet reports that he has successfully completed the task, “Don the protective mask.” Stitt nods, makes a quick pencil mark, and tells the new cadet, “Move out.”

Greg Stitt isn’t losing any sleep worrying whether or not CBT is too easy, or if the new cadets should be yelled at more. He thinks new cadets should be treated like basic trainees in the Army. That way, he says, “They’ll know what it’s like to be a private, and they’ll learn how to treat other people.”

Stitt, who is older than his classmates, is five eight, with red hair and the compact build and coiled energy of a lightweight boxer. He was a helicopter crew chief in the 82nd Airborne Division before applying for West Point. His experience as an enlisted soldier has shaped his view of how leaders should treat subordinates.

“Most people don’t realize they’re being developed until after it’s over,” he says. “If they pay attention, they realize they can learn from both good and bad examples. I can learn good points, or I can learn bad points,” he notes. “There is a lot of emphasis on thinking for yourself.”

All through a hot afternoon, the new cadets move from one station to another in squad groups. The equipment is unfamiliar (except to those new cadets who were enlisted soldiers and thus have been through Army Basic Training). Every station includes some timed task, but the pressure is not great; the tasks are just not that tough for this bunch of two-varsity-letter-winner, National-Honor-Society new cadets. A letter home might sum it all up as “spent the day getting dressed and undressed in unfamiliar and uncomfortable extra clothing.” The new cadets joke among themselves, compare notes on hometowns, slouch, and stretch under the shade of the trees as the classes drone on.

Major Rob Olson, Alpha Company’s Tac, notes that this is the first time the new cadets have had the chance to talk to one another at length, to find out they’re not the only ones worried about fitting in,
about handling the stresses of basic training. “For some of them this is the first time they’ve smiled [in the seven days since R-Day]. And there was a line at the latrine. It’s the first time some of them have taken a shit in a week.”

The new cadets stand in clusters in the shade after removing their equipment. Squad leader Grady Jett, an Army football player from Houston with a TV-star cleft in his chin, lets the new cadets joke around a bit, just a little banter, but he doesn’t hesitate to put them in the front-leaning rest—the push-up position—if they don’t respond fast enough to instructions.

Platoon Sergeant Stitt, who stands off to the side, says the platoon sergeants and company first sergeant—the highest-ranking cadet NCOs in the company—are saddled with a great deal of sudden, wide responsibility, especially considering that for most of them their entire leadership experience has been supervising one or two plebes during the previous semester. Now they’re responsible for forty or fifty or in the case of Company First Sergeant Josh Gilliam, 158 new cadets.

“We’re allowed to try things and do things differently,” Stitt says. “They [the Tacs] guide us into the right lane.” He holds up his hands to indicate a left and right limit. This is the same description Olson used when talking about letting the cadre figure things out on their own.