Chapter Fourteen- SMA: Senior Year Begins

"And I couldn't get away from you
Even if I wanted to
So I hang around
Till the leaves are brown
And the summer's gone"

-Aberfeldy


A New Beginning

Over the summer I had gotten a letter from SMA that said all cadets chosen to be officers would be notified by mail and would come to school early to participate in leadership training. While I had only been a corporal at the end of my Junior year, I hoped that the turnaround in my behavior and grades would get me the "pips" on my collar. Noncom cadets had stripes on the sleeves, officers had shiny circles or diamonds on their collars. Kinda like Star Trek. The letter I got instead said that I was promoted to buck sergeant (three stripes) and would be a squad leader. Whatever disappointment I felt was overwhelmed by the excitement of getting back to those stone walls and doing it right. My buddies were all coming back and I felt a surge of confidence I had never known before in my scholastic abilities. So that's the "potential" all those teachers had been talking about these many years.

The ten days or so that I had to get ready between summer camp and SMA flew by, and now here I was back in the friendly confines of South Barracks, the sun streaming down on the open Quad and a new year before me.

An Early Crisis

Within the first few days of the '74-'75 school year an incident happened that nearly turned the cadet leadership upside down. I was up late, reading in my room, when I heard a commotion coming from the galleries outside. My room was number 113, down in the corner on the ground floor, so I was in the shadows as I slipped out to see what was up. I heard a faculty officer telling other cadets who had come out to get back to their rooms. At least one cadet officer was doing the same. I hid behind a nearby pillar and listened. I recognized a couple of voices as cadet officers, one of whom was on Battalion Staff, and they seemed very distraught. I could hear weeping and a faculty officer speaking softly, but with stern authority. I only caught a word here and there, but it was obvious that these fellows had been caught partying in somebody's room. Alcohol was surely involved but I had no firm idea if anything else was found, though later it was said some pot was there as well.

The next morning there were a lot of haggard faces among the cadet officers from South Barracks. By Third Mess that day a number of them had been reduced in rank. There was no official announcement, no Special Orders read. Just a lot of guys minus one pip or stripe. I think Colonel Love probably realized how devastating it might be to have a mass dismissal so early in the year, especially since attendance was already down by nearly 100 cadets from the previous year. I don't doubt that a lot of those guys had also built up a good amount of positive karma over the years and had to cash it in to stay alive. A classy move on the part of the Administration, in my opinion.

Music is the Master

In my Senior year the music we listened to became the soundtrack of our day to day lives. I had always enjoyed LP's and FM radio, but because we all came from such diverse backgrounds and interests there was a wealth of new material to choose from. In middle school and public high school it was the Beatles, Stones, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, The Doors and all that. Once I got to SMA I heard about Yes, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, Wishbone Ash, Mahuvishnu Orchestra and Pink Floyd. But the album that became one with our world was Quadrophenia, by The Who. Each of the guys in my circle of friends found a character within the story that fit our take on teen angst. Pete was the bloody lunatic, I'll even carry your bags. I was the romantic, Is it Me for a moment? Several quotes from Quadrophenia ended up in the 1975 Yearbook. We spent a lot of our free time listening to LP's from end to end, not just enjoying the music itself, but feeling it viscerally.

Jim, Me, Boots listening to Jimi
School Days

Now it was back to class. Being a Senior and having some rank instilled a sense of purpose in me. I was in charge of my squad, and we were 1st squad, 1st platoon, A Company. When we lined up facing the audience at Parade, my guys were the first regular cadets you saw, left to right. I found my leadership style was not "tough but fair". It was "fair but tough". The guys knew what was expected quickly, and there were no excuses for screwing up. But I didn't ride them every day. I liked the idea that they would clean their rooms and maintain proper appearance without getting in their faces. Seemed to work.

I've already described my admiration for Major Neilson and Major Wease. It was so refreshing to have teachers that were passionate about their profession and who held up their subjects as something worthwhile knowing. One day Major Neilson said "All one needs for a complete sentence is a proper noun and verb combination. In fact, the best example of this can be found in the shortest verse in the Bible. The first one of you who can recite that sentence may leave class for the day." Oh my gosh, I just saw that the other day! "'Jesus wept'", I said. The Maj dutifully walked over to the door, opened it and said "Mister Newbegin, you may leave." Hot damn! Time to get on down to the Canteen for a quick snack before The Wease. Maybe Hazel is on the TV. Or Father Knows Best.

American History was a real gas. Major Johnson knew that stuff inside and out, and he would go on an on, naming names, quoting famous people, drawing parallels to current events. All the while the guys out here in the Peanut Gallery were cracking jokes. He let a lot of horseplay go right on, stopping now and then to calmly say "Now, y'all, this is gonna be on the test." When exam time came, every single thing he talked about was right there. If you weren't listening, you failed. I learned that lesson too well when I had to repeat a semester. And here I will say it for the record: I never stole Skeeter's hat shield. It was....somebody else. Sorry, Chuck, you'll have to keep on looking for the real perpetrators.

Another Brush with Disaster

One of my acquaintances at SMA, Keith Burleigh, told me that he had discovered a small cave entrance over at a nearby "mountain" called Betsy Bell. The two of us decided to go check it out over a weekend. We told another cadet, Tim Brosnan, about it and he came along as well. We got a couple of rucksacks, a length of rappelling rope, packed up some stolen Mess Hall food and set out after Inspection one Saturday.

It took us about an hour to get to the place, a hole just big enough to squeeze into at the base of a tree. Looking down into the depths of the sinkhole all I could see was a rock shelf about 2o feet down. We tied the rope off and I slid down to the shelf to see what I could see. The shaft continued around the rock and down another 50 feet or so to a sloping floor. Cool! I tossed the rope down and climbed after it. Looking around with my flashlight the first thing I saw was a dessicated turtle shell and bones. The sloping floor led to a larger chamber, a very inviting sight. So I yelled up "Hey, it's a pretty cool cavern, come on down. Burleigh and Broz slid down and we spent about an hour checking out the dead end caverns, finding a dog skeleton as well.

After eating the light lunch we had brought it was time to get on out. Suddenly Newton's law of universal gravitation reared its ugly head. It had been a breeze getting down the 70' shaft, but now we had to crawl back up using only bare hands and brawn. Not to mention that rock ledge 3/4 of the way up. It was decided that Broz would go up first because he was in the best shape. He scrabbled up, showering dirt and rocks down as he went. He squirmed around the ledge and got to the top while Burleigh and I discussed how much smarter it might have been to tell somebody where the hell we were going. I was next. It took a couple of false starts before I finally got to the rock. At six feet tall, I found it almost impossible to twist myself around the damn thing and hold on without falling back down. After 30 minutes on bone bruising effort I stood on the rock, exhausted. Tim helped me up by pulling on the rope. Together we hauled Burleigh up, and as his dirt-streaked face appeared through the hole he quipped "Hey, don't I know you guys?" Classic.

We dragged our weary bodies back to South Barracks, showered and hit our racks until First Mess on Sunday, glad to be alive.

Ouch!

I was on the SMA soccer team in my Senior year as well. One day at practice the coaches had us in lines facing each other. At the whistle we had to run to the ball in the center, control it, and pass it to a coach. When my turn came and the whistle blew, I drove forward, head down and hell bent for leather. I saw the ball just ahead and kicked into a sprint. Just as I got to the ball I looked up, just in time to see the forehead of teammate Thomas Battaglia. Then my whole world exploded. They call it "seeing stars", and you just don't know how true that is until it happens to you. As I fell I saw my two front teeth falling to the ground with me. Thomas had blood streaked down his face and he was down too. Somebody threw me a t shirt to stuff in my mouth and we were rushed to the Infirmary. Major Kegley, my Spanish IV teacher, was on duty on he drove me to the local dental surgeon, where I got 5 Novocaine shots and 22 stitches in my mouth. I was back in barracks after Third Mess and I was starving, even through the drugged haze I was in. Major Kegley went into town and got me a chili dog, fries and a soda. What a standup guy. In games we played that season I used to love flashing my toothless grin at the opposition just to freak them out. I didn't even get the worst of it. Thomas stayed in the Infirmary, where our horse doctor neglected to give him a tetanus shot. His wound got infected and he had to go back to Venezuela. Hey, Thomas, if you read this, Lo siento mucho. Espero que se sienta mejor.

Coming soon: Christmas, Christmas Time is near, time for joy and time for cheer. We've been good but we can't last. Hurry Christmas, hurry fast.