Chapter Fifteen- SMA: Sharp Dressed Man

I've got a good job And I'm newly born You should see me dressed up In my uniform...

Bellboy -The Who

Look Sharp!

The first time a lot of the guys at SMA ever had to wear a real uniform was that first discombobulating day at school. Suddenly we all had a brand new wardrobe, and to the untrained eye we all now looked exactly alike. The short hair, shiny shoes, basic gray attire and cute little black tie were all meant to make us feel like a small part of the greater whole. But each individual had his own way of dressing out that showed his feelings about the concept of "uniformity". Once I got used to it, I gotta admit I liked wearing some of those outfits!

As I described before, our basic day to day uniform was "Alpha": A soft cap, called an Overseas Cap; gray shirt with tie tucked in below the second button; gray slacks with that black stripe and black socks and shoes. The hat was an interesting thing. It looked like one of those caps the old soda jerks wore in the 50's. Some of the guys wore it pointed straight on, like an upside-down canoe sitting right on top of their head. Others wore it slightly off to the side for that rakish, guy out on the town in Hong Kong look. Some wore it with a little dip in the back to add a rudder. The round cap with a bill was called a Garrison Cap. While most of us wore it "as is", some cadets couldn't resist customizing it by bending the sides downward to create a "saddle". Anybody who did this ran the risk of being busted by Master Sergeant Gibson for being out of uniform.

Every aspect of the uniform had to be just so. The dress blouse had brass buttons and they had to shine. The gray shirt had collar tabs that had to be kept crisp and pointing down. The bill of the dress cap needed to be mirror-bright. And of course every item of clothing had to be clean and neatly pressed. Except the underwear. Well, for most of us. I suspected that there were a few cadets that ironed those, too.

And then there were the shoes. What an obsession those became! Each guy had his own way of bringing out the true luster of the leather. Our dress shoes and drill boots had to be polished to a brilliant sheen, capable of reflecting the observer's face from a distance of four feet. My method, since you asked: Start with a good base coat of Kiwi black, rubbed in with a sacrificed tshirt. Don't be stingy! Use small, circular motions that make your rotator cuff ache. Let dry, then using a small cup of water and a clean section of the tshirt, dab a bit of water and rubrubrubrubrubrub that black goo down into the leather until it starts to shine. Repeat as necessary over entire shoe. For a final touch buff the whole shoe and then, using a tiny bit more of the polish, rub the toe area and re-buff, using a hot breath or two to get the mirror finish. Then go wash all that damn polish off your fingers, Private!

Here are the basic supplies we used to keep the uniform elements inspection-worthy:

Spiffy Collar Stays: This was a wire in a "U" shape, with springs on either side and a little sharp pin at either end. You tucked it up over the top of the button, set the pins into the collar tabs and flipped the collar down. Did a great job unless the damn thing exploded at the worst time.


This stuff was so incredibly nasty. We would cut the buttons off the dress blouse and "take them down", trying to rub out the small horizontal lines around the school crest on each one. Some guys tried rubbing them on the windowsill, causing holes in the brass. That meant getting new buttons. It was rumored that a jeweler could also polish out the lines, but who had the dough for that? Brasso was good for the breastplates we wore on the parade uniform as well. And hat shields.







I still use Kiwi to this day to polish my umpire shoes. It always brings back the memories.









The product we used was called "Cadet". I can't find an image so I used this one. It's a black liquid that we carefully coated on the heels and edges of our shoes to keep that part shiny, too. Every year some brilliant New Boy would get the idea of smearing this stuff all over his shoes. Voila! Instant polish! Yes, that is until your squad leader pressed down on the toe with his shoe. Then all those little cracks and flakes would appear. Aww, too bad. Looks like you'll be taking all that crap off your shoes and re-polishing them while your buddies go downtown.









Yep, good ol' fashioned shaving cream. When you were done scraping the tiny little hairs all over your face, you put a nice glob of this on your hat brim and rubbed it up with a clean cloth. Look at that shine!











Go Navy!

Grandpa Newbegin arranged for me to get a few weekends' leave to come up to Annapolis and watch Navy football games with him The only stipulation he had was that I was required to wear my SMA uniform. I didn't want a repeat of his disappointment in me, so I dutifully arrived dressed out. I usually traveled by bus from Staunton to Alexandria, VA, and I got more than a few looks from the backwoods passengers who rode it with me. We all had stories like this: I was sitting next to an older lady and she asked me what part of the Army I was in. My favorite answer was "Southern Missile Attachment". "Yes, we man the missiles in the underground bunkers that are aimed at priority targets overseas. I've already told you too much." Priceless.

Watching the Navy games at Annapolis was a real kick. We always sat with Grandpa's Class of '27 buddies and their wives. Cold as shit in those seats, but about the second quarter, sometimes earlier, the flask would come out and we all got a nice warm-up from that. Who cared that I was only 17? Hell, he's wearin' a uniform, he can drink! I would excuse myself now and then to go have a smoke and that's when I felt most conspicuous. Here I was in a place filled with midshipmen and I was in a uniform slightly resembling a West Point cadet. The middies never gave me any trouble, and once a couple of guys bummed some smokes off me and we stood around talking about military school life. That was definitely cool. I felt like a minor leaguer talking to some pros.

A Sad Note

Early in November of 1974 Grandpa drove up to Alexandria to pick up Dad on the way to the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia. Just before they were to leave, Grandpa collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. Within a day or two they had diagnosed him with acute granulocytic luekemia. His wife (he had remarried after the death of my grandmother just two years before) said that he had been feeling ill for weeks but hadn't gone to a doctor. So typical of men from that generation, he had not wanted to be a bother and decided to tough it out. Mom wrote me, saying the doctors didn't give him long to live. Three days after I got the letter she called to say he had passed away. As one more favor to him, I donned my Sunday best dress uniform and went to his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

For those who have never seen a full military burial ceremony, the experience can hardly be put into words. The funeral home discretely placed Grandpa's casket in the Old Post Chapel, just outside the gates to the cemetery. After the eulogies, a color guard, in this case composed of naval personnel, carried the casket in a slow, dignified way to a shiny black caisson. A team of horses drew the wagon to the grave site, accompanied by a military band. Once it had been placed over the grave, a rifle volley salute was given. Uncle Bob was standing right in front of me and we were both saluting as required. When the volley went off he flinched noticeably. I could see him trembling slightly as the buglers sounded "Taps" in the "echo" format.

I wanted to reach out to him right then and there, but we were supposed to be military men. Stay with the salute. That other stuff comes later.


Silly Shit

I got back to SMA in a pensive mood. Now I was down to just one grandparent, but she was my favorite. Good old Grams. And some really goofy stuff happened not long after I got back that upped my spirits a bit.

I was on my way to Major Neilson's class one morning when one of the guys in B Company frantically waved me over to one of the bathrooms. "Man, you won't believe this!" he was yelling. I walked in and saw that one of the stalls had been roped off. "It's gotta be the biggest one ever!" I took a quick glance in and sure enough, there was undoubtedly the largest single piece of human feces I have ever seen. Yes, the memories are all there, no matter how I try to put 'em down.



Not long after that I was visiting some buddies over in the other side of the Quad when I heard a commotion coming from the room next door. A cadet came in grinning from ear to ear and told us to go to the window and wait. This side of South Barracks faced out over Prospect Street, which went past Mary Baldwin College. MBC was and still is an all-woman facility. This is key. After waiting a few moments we saw what had been going on. Chuck Pfarrer, the commander of the Color Guard, was leading a mission to deliver a letter to the postal box about half a block away. I have always wondered why he needed four other guys to help him do that. And why were they all naked? (Except for combat boots) I nearly pissed my pants. Here are these guys streaking down to the box and back, Johnsons flapping in the breeze and girls whistling and hooting from their windows. Oh, looks like Chuck is a natural redhead.


Next: The play's the thing...